LIFTER OF:

LIFTER OF:

Life can frequently bring us to a place where we feel hopeless. While in the valley of the shadow of death, which is also the valley of depression, sorrow, and hopelessness – often times we are overwhelmed and convinced there is no hope, no point, and no reason to endure.

There are various paths into the valley, but the destination is the same. When the circumstances of life strip away all distractions and lies, we then find ourselves standing in the valley – barefoot, bloodied, and face-to-face with raw reality.

The valley is a disconnected and distant metaphor until you’ve been. Then, when it becomes real, it is just as vivid (maybe even more-so) as where you’re standing just now.  The questions we ask in the valley tend to be in the line of:

“Does any of this even matter?”

“God, where are you in this?”

Sometimes we can’t even articulate the questions as we are crushed beneath mountains of fear, doubt, betrayal, sorrow, and circumstances. We ask those questions because, as Ecclesiastes 3:11 reveals, “God has placed eternity in the hearts of humanity.”

In the raw, uninsulated, and “nerve endings fully exposed” moments of life we realize the truth - something we were previously too comfortable, too busy, too distracted, and far too self-absorbed to realize: i.e. we have been suffering all along. We’ve been suffering from an eternal thirst that has gone unaddressed and unsatisfied.

In the valley honesty comes forth, and as Paul wrote, “the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.” That kind of honesty and truth isn’t lofty religion or stale theology – that’s revelation from God and filtered through raw experiential reality.

In the valley of depression, sorrow, hopelessness, and death it is the most natural thing for our eyes to be downtrodden because our own energy is sapped and our head collapses.

Sadly, even here in a state of utter exhaustion we still tend to resist. We stand staring at our raw and bloodied feet – still resisting, still focused on our circumstances, still focused on me, myself, my, mine, ego, and self rather than on Him who stands before us - arms outstretched gently lifting our head.

The Psalmist was been there in the valley when they wrote, “But you, Lord, are a shield around me, my glory and the lifter of my head.” -Psalm 3:3

Through the groans of truth we are encouraged to walk with Him.  As we do so - the valleys are lifted and the mountains leveled until we are so intimately united with Jesus there is only the unending joy of perpetual communion with God.

Isiah said, “Every valley will be lifted up, and every mountain and hill will be leveled; the uneven ground will become smooth and the rough places, a plain.”  Isaiah wasn’t merely talking prophetically in the sense of anticipating John the Baptist, but rather about the reality of our walking with Christ.

Have you been in the valley of the shadow of death? Are you there now? Know that He is with you – standing just there as your shield and the lifter of your head.

But you must invite Him and allow Him who is our LORD and Redeemer to do just that.

Beyond the mountains and valleys - we, like Enoch (Gen 5:24), can be raptured into the glorious bliss of God’s Presence, which is the eternal community of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

When we are truly redeemed in and by Christ then we experience life with the One who is our shield and the LIFTER of our heads.

Blessings,

-Kevin M. Kelley

aMostUnlikelyDisciple.com