God s Comfort Through the Valley Psalm 23 A psalm of David. 1 The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside quiet waters, 3 He restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for His name s sake. 4 Even 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. 5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. 6 Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever. The 23rd psalm is one of the most well known and, perhaps, most loved chapters in the entire Bible. It s no wonder that we often hear it preached at funerals, but it truly is a psalm for the living. Today I would like to focus on verse 4-- the transition verse-- because it s packed with God s comfort. So, let s dig right in: So, let s look at verse 4 again: Even 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." There is an old Arab saying that goes like this: All sunshine and no rain makes a desert." If you never have any down times, dark times, gloomy times in your life, you'll be dried up. You'll have no depth and certainly no maturity. Life is a mixture of pain and pleasure, of victory and defeat, of success and failure, of mountain tops and valleys. Today we're going to look at how God Comforts Us Through those Valleys. In Israel there really is a Valley called the Shadow of Death. It's a steep, deep and narrow canyon. The sun only hits the bottom when it's directly overhead at high noon. The rest of the time the bottom of the canyon is dark. David probably even led his sheep through the Valley of the Shadow of Death as he was growing up. And, as you look in other places in the Bible, the term "valley" often refers to all kinds of rough times in life. Joshua talks about the Valley of Calamity; Psalm 84 talks about the Valley of Weeping; Hosea talks about the Valley of Trouble. So, there s little doubt that we will encounter dark valleys in our lives, but the important thing is how we handle these dark valleys.
To help us get started today we re going to look at the characteristics of valleys themselves and what we can do to get through the dark valleys. First, there are five facts to remember about valleys: 1. VALLEYS ARE INEVITABLE 2. VALLEYS ARE UNPREDICTABLE 3. VALLEYS ARE IMPARTIAL 4. VALLEYS ARE TEMPORARY 5. VALLEYS ARE PURPOSEFUL 1. VALLEYS ARE INEVITABLE They are going to happen so you might as well count on them. You may have just come out of a valley, or you could be in one right now, and if not, you're probably headed toward one. After every mountain top there is a valley. Jesus was very realistic about this. In John 16, He says "In the world you will have trouble." It's not a matter of if, it's when. We re all going to have difficulty, disappointment, and discouragement in life. There will be times of suffering, sorrow, sickness. It is inevitable. 2. VALLEYS ARE UNPREDICTABLE You can't plan them, time them, or schedule them. Valleys always seem to come at a bad time -- when you don't have time or when you're unprepared. Have you ever had a flat tire at a good time? It would be great if we could schedule our valleys, but we can't plan life like that. Jeremiah 4:20 says "Disaster follows disaster... In an instant my tents are destroyed, my shelter falls in a moment." So we need to be prepared for the unknown. 3. WE CAN SEE THAT VALLEYS ARE IMPARTIAL No one is immune to them. Everyone faces problems, trials, difficulties, disturbances, downtimes, and depression. This doesn't mean you're a bad person. The Bible is very clear that sometimes bad things do happen to good people. In Matthew 5:45 Jesus said, "It rains on the just and the unjust too." When we go through a difficult time -- a valley in life -- the first reaction is always "Why me?" Remember this is not heaven. Things are not perfect here and there are problems and difficulties. They are going to happen in life -- to good people, to Christians. 4. VALLEYS ARE TEMPORARY They have an end to them. David says, "Even though I walk through the valley..." The valley is not something you stay in your entire life. It's something you go through -- a circumstance, a situation that has an end to it. I Peter 1:6 says "There is a wonderful joy ahead, even though the going is rough for a while down here." He admits that sometimes you're going to go through tough times. But it's only for a while. There is
wonderful joy ahead for us in heaven. There are no problems in heaven, no valleys, no dark days. While you may be harassed down here, in heaven you'll have no problems. And, if you know Jesus as your Savior then you are guaranteed to spend eternity in heaven. This is important because it teaches us that pain can be productive. And while we have the temporary hassles there is long term, eternal benefit when you go through a valley and respond to it correctly. 5. AND FINALLY, VALLEYS ARE PURPOSEFUL God has a reason for taking you through the valleys. Whether it's doubt, depression, despair, discouragement, defeat -- He's got a reason behind it. I Peter 1:6-7 "At the present you may be temporarily harassed by all kinds of trials." He says temporary -- they aren't going to last forever. There are financial valleys, relational valleys, emotional valleys, all kinds of different trials...this isn t an accident -- it happens to prove your faith..." The valleys are not just a freak of nature. God builds our faith in the valleys of life. We all love to enjoy the mountain tops, but it s hard to build faith on the mountain tops. God is far more interested in our character than He is in our comfort or our convenience. God's more interested in our holiness than He is in our happiness. Even Jesus wasn t exempted from suffering? Jesus experienced times of loneliness and so will we. Jesus was tempted to be discouraged and so will we. Jesus was misunderstood, maligned, criticized, and unjustly accused, and guess what, we re not exempt from any of these. But these things don t happen by accident. God doesn t cause accidents and tragedies. God is a good God and He cannot do evil. But God can use accidents and tragedies for good. He can use even the evil done to us by others, turn it around and bring good out of it by building character in us. But, I want you to see that he didn t just walk through a valley, he walked through the valley of the shadow of death. And when we re in the valley the most frightening times are the times when we can not see clearly in other words the shadows. In the darkness we just see the shadows. Someday, a shadow is going to fall over your life. Count on it. When those times come you need to remember three important things about shadows: 1. Shadows are always bigger than the reality. Fear is always greater than the actual problem. It's the fear that is enormous not necessarily the problem. 2. Shadows cannot hurt you. Ever been run over by a shadow? There is a difference between the shadow of a truck and the truck itself. Shadows are just an image without substance. 3. There is no shadow without a light somewhere. When you're going through a dark valley, you think: the sun has stopped shining. God is dead. I'm all alone. You can't see at all and you think you're in total darkness. But any time there is a shadow it means there is a light somewhere. When you become afraid of the shadow in the dark valleys of life turn your back on the shadow and look directly
at the light. Then what happens to the shadow? Jesus said, "I am the light of the world." When you look at Him you can t be afraid of all the other shadows around you. Ps. 34:19 "The good man does not escape all troubles -- he has them too. But the Lord helps him in each and every one." So now that we know about the valleys and shadows, what do we do to get through the valleys? HERE ARE FOUR THINGS TO REMEMBER WHEN YOU GO THROUGH DARK VALLEYS? 1. REMAIN CALM 2. REFUSE TO BE DISCOURAGED 3. REMEMBER THAT GOD IS WITH US 4. RELY ON GOD'S PROTECTION AND GUIDANCE David said, "I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me." 1. REMAIN CALM Notice that David says: "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. He says "I walk" -- not "I run" or "I panic and freeze": walking shows that we can calmly and deliberately make our way through the valley. 2. REFUSE TO BE DISCOURAGED Then David says, "I will not fear evil." Will implies a choice. It implies a conscious decision to not be afraid. If you are discouraged, it's because you're choosing to be discouraged. That s right: you're choosing to be discouraged. You're making the choice to look at all of the negatives. That's a choice. Choose to focus on Christ not your circumstance. Focus on the Savior, not on the situation. Focus on God s power not on your problem. Col. 1:11 says "God will strengthen you with his own great power so that you will not give up when troubles come, but you will be patient." It s a fact that in trying times our energy runs out. We don't have enough power to handle all the things that hit us in life. We need a power source to tap into. Psalm 34:18 "The Lord is close to the broken hearted and He saves those who are crushed in Spirit." Jeremiah 29:11 "I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you, not harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future." 3. REMEMBER THAT GOD IS WITH YOU David said, "For You are with me. God not only promises us His power in the valley, He promises His presence. You will never go through a valley in life alone. Isaiah 43:2 says "When you go through deep waters and great trouble, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown! When you walk through the fires of oppression, you will not be burned up -- the flames will not consume you." Why?Because God is with us.
Also, take notice that in verse 4 there is a strategic change in the language. In the first part of the psalm all of the pronouns are in the third person -- he talks about God: "He leads me beside still waters, He guides me into green pastures, He restores my soul". David is talking about God. But when he gets in the valley it changes to second person pronouns. He s no longer talking about God, but to God. "You are with me. Your rod and your staff comfort me." It's the valleys of life that bring us face to face with God. All of a sudden the ultimate becomes the intimate. These are the times when religion becomes a relationship. Any mature believer will tell you that the times they have been closest to God were in those face to face encounters that happen only in the valley. When you're in the valley and you're spent, depleted, perplexed, in despair and you're talking directly to God, He becomes real and God says, "I'm with you. I heard a new song entitled BLESSINGS on K-LOVE yesterday by a singer named Laura Story. She wrote this after her husband developed cancer. Here a few of the lyrics: We pray for blessings We pray for peace Comfort for family, protection while we sleep We pray for healing, for prosperity We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering All the while, You hear each spoken need Yet love is way too much to give us lesser things (Chorus) 'Cause what if your blessings come through raindrops What if Your healing comes through tears What if the thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise What if my greatest disappointments Or the aching of this life Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can't satisfy What if trials of this life The rain, the storms, the hardest nights Are your mercies in disguise Remember when we are in the valley, we re not in there by ourselves. We all love the mountaintops but we come face to face with God in the valleys of life. God is never closer than when we're in the valley.
4. AND FINALLY, REMEMBBER TO RELY ON GOD'S PROTECTION AND GUIDANCE David reminds himself of this when he says, Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. The rod and staff were the two basic tools that a shepherd used to protect and guide the sheep. A rod was basically about two feet long; at the end of it was a heavy knot. Shepherds were very skilled at hurling the rod, like a missile, at anything that would attack the sheep. God is saying, "When you go through the valley, I'm protecting you." The rod of God will protect you. (Today's shepherds use guns. It's interesting that in the Old West a gun is also called a rod!) God constantly fights for us. Remember, while you're fighting for your life in that depression, God is fighting with you. He's helping fight off spiritual forces. "Your staff comforts me." A staff was a long stick with a crock at the end of it. The shepherd uses a staff to guide and comfort. He will use the staff to draw the sheep in close to him. He will use the staff to lift them up when they're down. When we re going through the valley, God is with us using His rod and staff to protect and guide. Notice that throughout Psalm 23 the only constant is the presence of God; and that David is describing the joy of being in a personal relationship with God--a relationship that has no end: verse 6 says "Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." Do you have that relationship today? Do you have the assurance that when the dark valleys come in your life that God is there walking you through to the other side and that some day soon you will be with him forever in heaven?