Valley

I step outside my front door and close my eyes…I breathe in the sweet fragrance of the rain.

It falls rhythmically…each watery drop hitting dirt, wood, metal, concrete, grass and leaves. The sound resonates and plays unknown songs of God’s glory; it restores and brings new life to everything it touches.

My senses are alive with the reality that the rain has come and my small Texas town can rejoice in the blessings of its arrival. A once dry and brittle land is now (even if for a day) soggy and splashy and new.

I smile…

I feel like acting out as that wrongly imprisoned guy did in the “Shawshank Redemption” movie when he escapes the prison. He stood in the rain and with arms uplifted to the sky took in the wet drops of freedom he was finally able to experience.

That’s how I feel in this moment…free…restored…purposeful…new.

It’s the same way I feel after having come out the other side of a season in the valley. A season where I’m just not connecting with God like I should…it happens to all of us at some point. We find ourselves somehow not at the peak of the mountain top anymore where our presence and God’s feels the strongest, and instead we’re in the barren land of the valley below.

Our dry and cracked spirits long to be restored…to be connected with Jesus again. We pray to feel His presence and to know the purpose we once felt in our lives. We pray for spiritual rain in the midst of our valley. We know it would restore and bring new life in our walk with God.

A spirit of hopelessness and loss try to overtake us…and for some time it does have an influence. But in the end we children of God will not despair. We will not lose hope.

The rain will fall again.

And though we are at our worst in the valley…we find peace and faith in the knowledge that when the rain does come again, the valley will fill first.

The valley will fill first.

Jesus I know I’ve been metaphorical in this post…but I also know those reading these words will understand what I mean.

God I pray for a life filled with purpose and connection with You…I pray for the strength and desire to always fight for it…to never give up. I pray this same thing for my brothers and sisters in Christ. May we not lose sight of Your constant presence and love for us, and Your desire to be re-connected with us when we find ourselves on the mountain top or in the valley.

Valleys fill first.