What Happened In The Valley Could Not Stay In The Valley

I have not written a devotional-type post in a long time, and I am deciding to bring these back. God has laid this on my heart, and I wanted to share it with you all. Welcome to another post here at Coffe Dates with Jesus. Thank you for stopping by to read. This post is "What Happened In The Valley Could Not Stay In The Valley."

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death......"

Most of us have heard of this particular stanza within the Bible. The writer is the psalmist David. David is someone I have been looking at with a different perspective. David was human, just as we are. David had his ups and downs. He has done great things, but he has also done things that are not that great. That is okay. Being human, there will be hardships, there will be times that you want to give up, and there will also be times we walk through the valley, just as David did.

At church one Sunday, we began to talk about prayer and praise for a brief moment. Both of these things are good, but at that moment, praise began to stick out to me the most. When you go through hardships in your life, sometimes we do not know what to pray for or how to pray, so instead, we sing. I think that is why David wrote as many Psalms as he did. He wrote so many songs because that was his way of getting through life. When most people chose to pray, I bet David decided to sing.

Psalm 23 was one of David’s most famous songs that he wrote. As I was reading this, two things stuck out to me the most: the still waters and the valley. First, I want to deal with the still waters.

The first two lines of David’s song say, “The Lord is my Shepard, I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside still waters.” As we can see, God is represented as a Shepard, and by default, that makes David (and us) a sheep. I began to wonder and ask myself, “why does a Shepard (in general) lead sheep beside still waters? Why do the waters HAVE to be still? What is the significance of this?” Holy Spirit led me to study the nature of sheep.

Sheep are very vulnerable animals. There are categorized as one of the most defenseless animals ever created. They cannot run fast, are defenseless, and are frightened easily. They are so easily scared that the smallest scare could cause them to have a heart attack. When sheep get in the water, their wool acts like a sponge, so we can infer that sheep cannot swim. The Shepard leads His sheep (us) beside still waters so they won’t have a heart attack (lol). He leads us there just as He led David so that we won’t be afraid.

Now, let’s deal with the valley. In Psalm 23, we see that David receives a revelation about God in the valley. As I was reading this, something about David stuck out to me. When he came through this battle and began to write this song, David never says, "Lord, even though You have led me to this valley," no, instead he said, "Yea though "I" walk through the valley of the shadow of death." David shows us that we will end up in places that we choose for ourselves in life, and we cannot blame our ignorance on God. The beautiful thing about this that happened was David had a revelation amid his hell on earth: the valley. He realized that God is still with him even though he may lead himself into places not meant for him. Even though the enemy makes it look pretty on the outside, it does not mean it has anything to benefit me on the inside.

One thing that was going through my mind was why did it take David going through the valley to receive this revelation about God? Holy Spirit began to show me that David did not HAVE to go through the valley, but he CHOSE to go through the valley. We do this all of the time. When we think our way is better than God’s way, we choose to go through the valley.

Then I began to ask, "why would someone choose to go through hardships?" I do not believe that David chose to go through the valley because of evil, but he went through the valley because it looked pretty. We learn in science that the steeper the mountain is, the faster the water flows, and as the water flows faster, the valley becomes deeper. What may have looked good to David was not meant for him to go through. Figuratively speaking, David was drowning in the valley of his fears.

Since David and people are being represented as sheep, the sheep got off course, and he got away from his Shepard. Remember: sheep cannot swim, so when David entered the valley, everything on the outside that disqualified him from being a sheep began to make his wool swell, and David began to sink. David was sinking in fear, doubt, and confusion because what seemed to be from God was really from the enemy. At that moment, when David’s wool began to swell, it did not disqualify him from being a sheep, but it showed the very nature of what a sheep looks like without its Shepard.

The revelation that David had of God began to happen. Whenever sheep get in trouble or lost from the flock, the Shepard takes the hook end of his staff to pull the sheep out of whatever they walked into. Then, the Shepard taps them with the rod to correct (teach) them. That’s why David could say, “Your rod and Your staff they comfort me.” David knew that his actions had consequences, but he also knew that his Shepard would be right there to get him through it.

David had an experience here, and when you have this type of revelation about God, no one can make you waver from that. No one will EVER be able to change David's mind about the goodness of God. God showed David that it does not matter what life throws at you, what people say about you, how your enemies try to destroy you, or whatever on the outside tried to disqualify him as a sheep because He would still be his comforter.

When David made it through the valley, he started singing to people about the goodness of God. His song (Psalm 23) says,

"The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

David did not have a choice but to sing his song as loud as he could because what happened in the valley could not stay in the valley.

-Taleigh E. Reed, Coffee Dates with Jesus