Flowers in the Valley

Growing up, my dad, Rev. Mack Carpenter’s favorite bible verse was, 1 Thessalonians 5:18 which says, “In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”  He would always tell us that we should be thankful in all things, and for all things. One specific and classic memory that comes to mind where he lived out this verse, notwithstanding it was what he did every day, was when we were all dressed up, and ready to head out to a scheduled meeting. As he pulled out of the garage, he realized that there was a flat tire on the passenger’s side and got out to inspect it. He looked down and his worst fear, because we were running short on time and he despised being late, was confirmed, yet he just said, “Well, Thank you Jesus.” Not with sarcasm, but with a genuinely grateful tone. He then looked up at my sister and I and said, “You never know what the purpose of a delay could be. God could be saving us from being involved in a major accident.” The example he showed at that moment has stuck with me my entire life, and though I have fallen short at times, I have tried to live in gratefulness ever since.

People are always searching and wondering what the will of God is, and more specifically what the will of God is for their lives. They can almost make themselves sick with worry over it if they are not careful, which completely defeats the purpose. They ask things like, what is it? How small or large is it? When will it happen to me? Where will it take me? Where will I end up? How will it affect my present lifestyle? However, the will of God is not a destination, but the journey itself. It is living a life that is always thankful and grateful. Acknowledging God for who He is and what He has done with every breath, throughout our day. Not waiting to offer up a short canned, ‘Now I Lay me Down to Sleep’ prayer at bedtime. As King Solomon stated in Lamentations 3:22-23, “It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.”

This kind of acknowledgement is not dependent upon our emotions, circumstances, or current situation. It is not just when we are happy, but not when we are sad, just when we are contented, but not when we have doubts and fears, but it is the abiding presence of the Lord that comes through our recognition of his goodness, in spite of any given occurrence, or ‘bad hair’ day, or horrific day that you may be going through. David prayed in Psalm 16:11, “Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.” 1 John 2:6 admonishes us, “He that saith he abides in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.” According to the dictionary, abiding means to last a long time, to be ageless, enduring, or continuing. This is the will of God concerning you and me.

My husband and I have been in the ministry for over forty-five years, in various capacities. We have pastored several churches, assisted pastors, led youth groups, children’s ministries as well as men and women’s groups. We have worn just about every hat there is and have been blessed to have each other to share and discuss things with. Many times, during our lives of living and working for the Lord, when we got to a point of contemplating what the ‘will of God’ was for our lives, we would come to the conclusion, that we were indeed living in the will of God, and if we were thinking we were being led elsewhere, it must be God trying to speak to us. Giving us a nudge in a different direction. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 5:7, “For we walk by faith, not by sight.” Psalm 37:23 tells us, “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord: and he delights in his way.”  When we truly give him our life and the control thereof, he will direct our paths. As Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”

God is omniscient. He can see the panoramic view of our lives, yet he does not always choose to disclose everything to us because we as humans cannot handle it with our finite vision and minds. We want to know what is the massive, huge, long-term, magnificent will of God for our lives; however, if he told us where we would be and what we would be doing ten years from now, what would we do with that information? Exactly! We would begin to worry and fret about the ins and outs of the how, when, where, and what was going to happen on the journey to that destination. What a miserable existence it would be to try to run the show all the time, with less than all the information, the power, and the ability to get things done efficiently and effectively. I would personally prefer to allow Jesus to ‘take the wheel’ as Carrie Underwood sang years ago, than to make a colossal mess of things. Jesus will walk and talk with us daily if we will let him, and he will disclose things on a ‘need to know’ basis. He will never be surprised at things that would otherwise startle, shock, uproot, or sideswipe us. He will take us in the direction that he wants us to go to accomplish His will.

There will be many twists, curves, and bumps in the road along the way. Even as children of God, we can be realistic. My husband and I recently got back from a two week vacation. We drove 5,502 miles on the back of a motorcycle, from our home state of Tennessee to Washington state, and back. We enjoyed every moment, but it was not a straight trek by any stretch of the imagination. Though there were a few roads with a mile or so of straight stretches as an arrow few and far between, the rest was up and down, in and out, curved and “Hello, where is the road moments.” We went through the Black Hills of South Dakota, up to Mount Rushmore, over the Continental Divide of 11, 000 plus feet elevation in Montana, through Yellowstone Park peaks and valleys in Wyoming, through the prairies and amber waves of grain, and you name it, the terrain was quite diverse, yet anything but straight. We live in a town that is 443 feet above sea level, and even after we thought we had continued to come down out of the mountains, when we reached Denver, Colorado, we realized that we were still a mile high, which is 5,280 feet. We were out of our comfort zone, and there were definitely a few moments of panic for me, but it was breathtakingly beautiful. You will never see the mountaintop views unless you have been in the valley, and visa versa, what goes up will come down. These are all facts, but when God is in control, we have no cause to fear. Life has its ins and outs and its difficulties, but if we let him have control, and stop being backseat drivers, He will bring us through and out of the storms, and home safely. 2 Peter 3:9 tells us, “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”

Often, speaking in a spiritual sense, the valley denotes an analogy of a dark place where things are uncomfortable, tragic, or scary. I heard a beautiful song recently called, “Flowers” by Samantha Ebert that goes like this,

Well, blue skies and hillsides feel so far away.

And I wrote in my notebook that I’ve seen better days.

Than the ones as of late, I can’t bear the weight.

The rain won’t stop pouring out my windowpane,

And I haven’t left my bedroom in 76 days,

I wish something would change, ‘Cause I’m losing faith.

So, I brought it up in a desperate prayer, “Lord, why are you keeping me here?”

Then He said to me, “Child, I’m planting seeds.

I’m a good God and I have a good plan. So, trust that I’m holding a watering can.

And someday you’ll see flowers growing in the valley.”

So, whatever the reason, I’m barely getting by.

I’ll trust it’s a season knowing that you’re by my side.

Every step of the way. And I’ll be okay.

‘Cause I brought it up in a desperate prayer, “Lord, why are you keeping me here?”

Then He said to me, “Child, I’m planting seeds.

I’m a good God and I have a good plan. So, trust that I’m holding a watering can.

And someday you’ll see that flowers grow in the valley.”

When I’m on the mountain and looking down below.

I’ll see a valley of flowers that needed time to grow.

And I’ll thank you for the rain, the hurt and days of pain.

And I’ll bring it up in a grateful prayer, “Thank you, Jesus, for keeping me there.

You know just what I need, and you’ve planted seeds.

‘Cause you’re a good God, with a real good plan,

And you hold my world in a watering can.

So, I can have peace, ’cause flowers grow in the valley.”

You see how throughout the song the author is feeling all the hurt, pain, shame, loneliness, not understanding why things are happening to her, but in the last chorus, she realizes God was there all along and he was right all along, and she changed her prayer to, “Thank you Jesus for keeping me there.” She acknowledged him and that He was in control and through that, she found peace. David stated to the Lord in Psalm 23:4, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” Psalm 65:13 says, “The pastures are clothed with flocks; the valleys also are covered over with corn; they shout for joy, they also sing.” And Psalm 104:10 states, “He sends the springs into the valleys, which run among the hills.”

My children will attest to the fact that I love flowers. I have not always had a green thumb though. In fact, it has been brown most of my life. When my husband and I first married I tried growing flowers in pots on our little apartment balcony, and my husband told me I should just go ahead and put little crosses in them, because they were going to die and it looked like a plant grave yard. How sad! I would not give them enough water or too much, and never learned which was correct, until thanks to the trusty rusty internet where we can google and find answers to most anything, I have learned quite a bit and have a relatively up and coming garden started. I have learned that there are annuals that must be planted yearly, and perennials that go into a dormant stage in the winter and will come up on their own yearly. Some plants need shade, and some need full sunlight to live their best lives. There are plants and trees that can take years to mature before blooming or bearing fruit. They are all subject to seasons, as we are, and each season is necessary.

Even before I had a thriving garden, when we would take road trips with our girls, I would make a concerted effort to point out every blossom that I spotted along the roadside. Though they probably got sick of it after the first couple, I wanted them to see the beauty of creation, acknowledge God as this magnificent Creator, and learn to live in gratefulness to Him and in awe of Him. This is how we live in and know His will for our lives. It should not be a mystery when we are walking and talking with Him daily. They realize now as adults the significance of acknowledging that there are just things that we cannot do or create ‘ex nihilo,’ from nothing, as God did and can, no matter how smart or creative we think we are. This can be seen in something we may think of as simple such as flowers, which are indeed very intricate and complex. I trust that my daughters will pass a thankful and grateful spirit down to their children as my dad did to us.

Every one of us must build a personal relationship with God, by walking and talking with him daily. This literally keeps us in the will of God. We so often try to overthink things. And yes, we can be stubborn and try to get by on our own, before realizing that it is not going to happen. Not successfully anyway. Galatians 5:25 &16 says, “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. This I say then, walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.” Genesis 3:8 tells us how Adam and Eve should have been better off dwelling in God’s presence, rather than just penciling him in for a daily appointment. “And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.” By the meeting time, they had already ‘tried to do things their own way’ and had failed and fallen into disobedience. Jesus said in Matthew 10:27-28, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.” We will be safe and continue daily in His will if we abide in his presence within the sound of His voice.

When we walk away from Him and stop acknowledging His miracle working power in our lives, we let Him know that we think we are grown up enough to manage things ourselves. And yes, he will allow us to walk away, and ‘take the wheel’ back. The story of the Prodigal Son in the book of Luke is an example; however, we read that the pig pen was not the end of his story, because he came back to his senses and realized how desperately he needed his father. We see another example in the story of Jonah. Jonah 1:3 says, “But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so, he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.” He literally decided to leave the presence of God, if it is even conceivable that he believed he could do such a thing. And we know where he ended up, until he cried out to the Lord for mercy. Though we may try to ostracize ourselves from God and do things on our own, He said in Hebrews13:5, “…I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”

I am thankful for the loving kindness and mercy of the Lord to us, even if we act like ingrates. We must let Him have control in the good times and the bad, on the mountain tops of life or in the low valley moments. Always acknowledging him. My husband and I have noticed in our fifteen years of taking rides on the motorcycle that the sweetest smelling honeysuckle usually grows in the shadows of the cool valleys. We need to dwell with him and abide with him all day every day, so we can begin to know His voice and be able to see things through his eyes and perspective, then we will automatically know his will for our lives, because we will be living in it. God’s will is the journey, not the destination. It is the here and now, not the ‘pie in the sky, in the sweet by and by’ that we think we are looking for.

Another song that has become a favorite of mine sung by Zach Williams and Dolly Parton, is called, “There was Jesus.” It goes like this:

Every time I tried to make it on my own, every time I tried to stand and start to fall.

And all those lonely roads that I have travelled on, there was Jesus.

When the life I built came crashing to the ground, when the friends I had were nowhere to be found.

I couldn’t see it then, but I can see it now. There was Jesus.

In the waiting, in the searching, In the healing and the hurting.

Like a blessing buried in the broken pieces.

Every minute, every moment, where I’ve been and where I’m going.

Even when I didn’t know it or couldn’t see it, there was Jesus.

For this man who needs amazing kind of grace, for forgiveness at a price I couldn’t pay.

I’m not perfect so I thank God every day, there was Jesus.

In the waiting, in the searching, in the healing and the hurting.

Like a blessing buried in the broken pieces.

Every minute, every moment, where I’ve been and where I’m going.

Even when I didn’t know it or couldn’t see it, there was Jesus.

On the mountain, in the valleys (there was Jesus).

In the shadows of the alleys (there was Jesus).

In the fire, in the flood (there was Jesus).

Always is and always was.

No, I never walk alone (never walk alone). You are always there.

There was Jesus.

Do not keep putting off spending time with the Lord, continuing to seek some evasive thing you call His will for your life, because the very thing you are avoiding is what you are looking for. He will be there for you no matter what, like a blessing buried in the broken pieces, or planting seeds and watering them so there will be flowers in your valley. Paul stated in 2 Thessalonians 1:10-12, “When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day. Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power: That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and ye in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.” He will be with us, but walking in His will is to acknowledge that he is there, thereby bringing Him the glory that he deserves, and ourselves the peace of mind that we have been seeking.