As the continued dumpster fire that was 2020, and now 2021 comes to a close, I decided that the best way to restart my faith blog with one of my most beloved posts. Yes, this was originally written and posted in 2007, but the content is still relevant to us some fourteen years later. Thus, I give you:
A Belated New Years’ Greeting
December 31, 2007:
As 2007 draws itself to close, I find myself with a cold and semi-voiceless and so with “pen in hand” so to speak, I write in the hopes that this missive helps to encourage you along your way in the coming year. (When you sound like “Darth Kermit,” what else can you do but dig into the Word and write, right?”) I take my benchmark for a starting place from my own pastor, Pastor Melissa Scott, and her message to us yesterday.
So let’s all turn to Deuteronomy 8:2. “And thou shalt remember all the way which the LORD thy God led thee.” As we look back at this past year, how many had days where they weren’t sure if they would make it? Speaking for myself, I think I’ve run out of fingers counting the number of times in the last sixty days that I wanted to throw in the towel or had a circumstance enter my life that reduced me to tears. How about the rest of you? Be honest. We’re all still here, right? So I guess that means that we had the faith to hang on, and God saw us through, right?
I don’t know about the rest of you, but the next verse of Deuteronomy 8 sounds like my life this past year. The third verse, “And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live.” One of the toughest things I had to face was my eating habits and coming to terms with them. More specifically, coming to terms with the fact that I am helpless to change and keep a constant commitment to continuing with that change by myself without Divine help. Yet, through my failings, God through His Grace, has given me enough courage to dust my butt off and get up and try again.
Now, this leads me to one of the Psalms I that try to live by on this walk: Psalm 84. As I believe in giving credit where credit is due, much if not all of what I bring to you on this Psalm was learned from my late pastor, Dr. Gene Scott. Psalm 84 was one of his trademark annual messages that became known as “Nitro Pills,” and it is my joy to carry it on and share it with others. I can only hope that this brief recap encompasses some small measure of the depth of teaching and encouragement that I received over the years listening to Dr. Scott.
Psalm 84, starting at verse 5, “Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; in whose heart are the ways of them. Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well; the rain also filleth the pools. They go from strength to strength.” So, who is this man? This man is in a state of being that is the blessing of being able to take his (or her) strength from God and in whose hearts are the ways of God. We have the ways of God in our hearts when we start living in the Word and faithe on His promises.
Verse 6, “Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well; the rain also filleth the pools.” In Hebrew, names have meanings, and the translation for Baca is “weeping.” This is why you’ll see some translations read “Who passing through the valley of weeping.” Now, here are some other key points. Notice that it says, “who passing through.” This blessed person is not camping out in the valley of weeping; they’re passing through it. There is no indication of how long or short the trip is going to be, either. We know it’s going to be tough because if it wasn’t going to be tough, it surely would not have been called the “valley of weeping.” It would have been something else, like a “peaceful valley.”
Notice also that it says that the person passing through this valley of weeping “make it a well.” Although I use the King James, the American Standard Version has this translated right. They say, “Passing through the valley of weeping, they make it a place of springs.” A well or place of springs is a place where other people can draw refreshment from, not just the person who dug the well. I have been both as the recipient of the well-spring and the person doing the digging. Digging through the well-spring of God’s Word and sharing it with others in our time of crisis is as much a blessing to those giving it as it is to those who are peripherally receiving it. That’s the blessing that comes to cover the pools.
Verse 7 reads, “They go from strength to strength.” As we walk by faith in our Christian experience, it is in these testing times of the valley of weeping that we gain new strength to face the next test. We, in fact, go from strength to strength as we go through life’s valleys. AW Tozer said in one of his books that Christianity is a journey, not a destination. This is so true. I know that I can look back at the things that I thought would bury me 20-30 years ago and almost laugh. (Does anybody remember when our biggest problem was what to wear to Prom? Not whether or not we were going, but what we would wear if we did.)
The key is that we all made it. We may have grumbled, we may have cried, we may have used less than “genteel language” in the midst of the problems, but we made it. We can look back at the way that the Lord brought us on this trip and say, “Yes, blessed men and women of faith do pass through their valleys.”
Finally, I invite you to join me in a tradition started by Dr. Scott when he first came to be Pastor. He took a page from David’s Psalms. As David grew in faith, he learned to put the future into the past tense. He went from “Oh God, deliver me from my problems” to “Praise God, He’s already given us this victory” long before the battle had begun. So as we close 2007 and start 2008, please say with me and in claim it by faith: “We made it through 2008, victoriously, in Jesus’ name.”
Shalom to you all.
I now invite you to join me as we close 2021 and start 2022 while we put faith into action; please say with me and claim it by faith: “We made it through 2022, victoriously, in Jesus’ name we claim.”