Wells in The Valley

Out to me, and it seemed like such a wonderful thing.

But I was reading through Psalm 84 in my devotions a few weeks

ago, and I decided to dive a little deeper into a study of

this passage. And what I found was even more

wonderful than what I had initially thought.

I'm going to read the entire chapter.

It's not a real long chapter. It's just 12 verses here in

Psalm 84. But I want to pull a few things

out of there this morning that'll hopefully be a help to

us. Psalm 84 and verse #1 The Bible

says, How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts, My

soul longeth, yeah, even fainteth, for the courts of the

Lord. My heart and my flesh crieth out

for the living God. Yeah, the Sparrow hath found in

house, and the swallow and nest for herself, where she may lay

her young, even thine altars. O Lord of hosts, my King and my

God, blessed are they that dwell in thy house.

They will still they, they will be still praising thee, Seala.

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.

Every one of them in Zion appeareth before God.

O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer, Give ear, O God of

Jacob. Seala, Behold, O God, our

shield, and look upon the face of thine anointed, for a day and

night Courts is better than 1000.

I'd rather be a doorkeeper in the House of my God than to

dwell in the tents of wickedness.

For the Lord God is a son and shield.

The Lord will give grace and glory.

No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.

O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee.

Boy, I tell you what, there's there's several verses in there

that really stick out and verse 10 is one of them.

I'd rather be a doorkeeper in the House of my God than to

dwell in the tense of wickedness.

Verse 11. No good thing will he withhold

from them that walk uprightly. But I want to focus this morning

on that verse that we find on the passage that we find in

verse #6 who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well?

Now, baca comes from the Hebrew word that is related to weeping

or sorrow or tears. Nobody really knows exactly

where this place is. It's been suggested by several

scholars that I read that that here the word baca is signifying

some kind of balsam tree. The balsam trees would flourish

in a valley. They love the dry places, the

the dry areas. But balsams also have a sort of

a of a weeping because of the SAP that flows out of them.

And so the valley of Baca was some waterless, gloomy valley

that the pilgrims would have to pass through on their way to the

city of God, on their way to Zion, on their way to Jerusalem

for worship. And so the psalmist here, I

believe, is recalling the the pilgrims entering this valley

with maybe misgivings overnight, weary and thirsty.

And they would find rain sometimes in the morning that

had filled those pools and covered that that barren valley

with a carpet of green. This was a valley of lamentation

or a valley of weeping. It's probably not even worth the

attempt anymore at trying to figure out exactly where this

place is. It's, it's long since gone, if

it, if it was ever actually a, a, a real place.

But as useful as a this place is for us is as a lesson today,

it's, it's, it's has so much that it represents.

In fact, there's, there's the possibility, as I just

mentioned, that Baca was not even a real place at all, but it

was a symbolic place that so many people find themselves in.

And it, you know, more than likely it was a, it was an

actual place that, that the pilgrims would have known about

the travelers going to Jerusalem would have known about, because

he references it and talks about it as if it's a place that they,

that they know. But either way, whatever,

whatever it happens to be, they understood the meaning of what

he was talking about passing through the valley of Baca and

making it a well, it's a place of weeping.

It's a place of hardship. It's a place of, of dryness or

trial. And, and at the very least,

whether it's a real place or not, it represents the, the

difficulties that we face in life, the difficult seasons that

we go through times of sorrow, times of testing times.

And, and sadly, we get into this point as well, But times of

spiritual dryness where we just feel like we're not close to

God, where we just feel like we have a hard time praying, where

we just feel like we have a hard time reading his word, where we

feel like we just have a hard time just doing what's right.

And it just feels like sometimes we're just going through the

motions. We're, we're coming to church

and we're involved in ministries and we're doing things, but it's

just, it's just spiritually dry. That's what this valley

represents. It's the painful or the

challenging valleys that we walk through on our way toward God's

presence. Every one of us knows what it

feels like to walk through a valley because we're all humans

and all of us will go through valleys at some point in our

lives. Low points, difficult times,

hardships, and maybe you're not in the middle of a valley right

now, but there's a good chance that you just came out of one

and there's a good possibility that you're getting ready to go

into one. But I know there's a lot of

people who are who might be in that valley this morning.

Some valleys come suddenly, maybe a phone call in the middle

of the night. Some of them come on slowly and

gradually, through months of pressure or discouragement, or

in some cases a slow backslide away from God and away from His

Word and away from the things that you know that you should be

doing. But valleys are not just places

of pain. Now there's, there's many

valleys that are mentioned in the Bible and, and many times

they are there. It's it's almost always

associated with a, with a low spot because it is a low spot,

but it's associated with a place of pain, a place of hardship, a

place of difficulty. But in Scripture, valleys are

often places of transformation. And Psalm 84 describes one of

those valleys, the valley of Baca.

It's only mentioned one time in the Bible right here in Psalm

84, but it is packed with meaning.

And the psalmist here is showing us that God can turn valleys of

weeping into a place of wells, into a place of strength, into a

place of fellowship with God. And so this morning I want to

show you some of those things in this passage.

The title of my message is Wells in the Valley.

Wells in the valley. Let's pray, and then we'll look

at a few things from this passage, how God can use this

valley in our lives. Let's pray.

Father, again, we thank you so much for your goodness to us.

Thank you for the opportunity we have to be together here this

morning. I pray that this would be a help

to us. God, I know some people are

going through valleys right now. They're going through

difficulties. I pray that this would be a help

to them, those who may not be in a valley right now, but are most

likely and most certainly going to face a valley at some point

in the future. God, may this be a help and a

reminder to us of the things that can be gained in the

valley, things that can be learned in the valley.

May you help us this morning and thank you again for all you do

for us in Jesus name, Amen. First thing I want you to see is

this. The valley is a place we all

must pass through. Now notice here in Psalm 84,

keep a bookmark there, if you will.

We're going to come back. We don't have a lot of different

passages to turn to this morning, but I do have a few and

and we'll be coming back to Psalm 84.

But there in verse #6 the Bible says, who passing through the

valley of Baca make it a well. And I don't mean to hammer this

point, but I want to mention this again to help you

understand what I'm trying to say here.

This this is a valley of weeping.

It's a valley of sorrow. It's a valley of dryness.

And it represents those seasons of grief, the seasons of loss,

the seasons of discouragement, the seasons of spiritual

dryness, the seasons of unanswered question tears,

seasons of tears that you cry when nobody else sees.

And here's the thing, Sometimes we bring those seasons upon

ourselves. Sometimes that spiritual dryness

is our own fault. Sometimes that, that, that that

hardship that comes, we, we bring those problems onto

ourselves. But sometimes we're just living

our spiritual life. And God brings trials into our

lives the same way that he did with Job.

Job didn't do anything to bring that trial on himself other than

live up right before God. And Satan came to God and said,

Hey, here's a man that I know will curse you to your face if

you allow hardships to come. And God said, all right, let the

hardships come, Job wasn't doing anything wrong.

Now many times, I believe many times, we do bring the problems

on ourselves, but sometimes they're not problems of of our

own making at all. Has nothing to do with us.

But here we find ourselves in the middle of a valley.

But sometimes there are things that just come upon us as

trials. But notice what the psalmist

says. Actually notice what he doesn't

say. He doesn't say who's staying in

the valley of Baca. Make it a well, what does he

say? He says who passing through the

valley, turn over to Psalm 23. See, every believer has valleys.

Everybody goes through difficult things, but valleys were never

meant to be the final destination.

Probably the other. I mean, as I mentioned, there's

a lot of valleys that are mentioned in the Bible, but

probably the one of the, but one of the probably the only other

one that you would know if I asked you to mention a specific

valley that the Bible talks about in relation to a

difficulty or a trial would be in Psalm 23.

And he says this, Yeah, 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.

See, valleys were never meant to be the final destination.

Sometimes we have to walk through a valley.

And that's what he's saying. It's a he's in Psalm 23.

He's using this as a, as a metaphor to say that, that

sometimes you are going to go through difficult things and

it's going to feel like the shadow of death is hanging over

you. But he says, yeah, though I walk

through that valley sometimes. And that's exactly what the

psalmist is saying here in Psalm 84.

Who passing through the valley of Baca, you're going to make it

out on the other side? There's a phrase that I love

that's mentioned in the Bible 453 times that says this.

And it came to pass. And it came to pass.

Everything always comes to pass. If you woke up today in a

valley, don't unpack your bags and settle in.

God didn't bring you there to stay.

He brought you there to lead you through that valley.

It will come to pass. You just have to keep walking

through that valley because all of us have to go through the

valley sometimes. Now He might have some valuable

lessons to teach you on the way through that valley, but a

valley is meant to pass through. I want you to see this number 2.

If you turn back over there to Psalm 84, the valley is a place

we all must pass through, but the valley is a place that

proves where our strength comes from.

The valley is a place that proves where our strength comes

from. Psalm 84, I'm sorry and verse #5

the Bible says blessed is the man whose strength is in Thee.

See, God often lets us walk through valleys not to break us,

but to show us what we're depending on.

And sometimes that valley exposes our own

self-sufficiency. Sometimes that valley exposes

our own pride. It exposes our own hidden fear.

It exposes our own misplaced confidence.

But when our human strength, strength runs out, that's when

God's strength begins. The sooner we come to the

realization that our strength is not enough, the sooner we can

understand that our real strength comes from God anyway.

The sooner we come to an end of ourselves, the sooner we come to

the source of our true strength. You cannot do it alone,

especially when you're going through a difficult time,

especially when you're going through a valley.

You cannot do it alone. That's what Psalm 23 is all

about. The Lord is my shepherd.

And so everywhere I go, He is there leading me and guiding me.

And He's with me. Yeah, 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, right? It doesn't have anything to do

with the sheep. It has everything to do with the

shepherd. And that's the point that we

have to understand here. Blessed is the man whose

strength is in thee. I read a story about a young man

who decided that he wanted to climb a mountain that he had

seen all his life. It wasn't a it wasn't a Everest.

It wasn't dangerous. It was just really it was a

tall, rugged hill that that he had seen in the distance his

entire life. And finally one morning, he

decided, I'm going to climb that mountain.

And so he he grabbed a bottle of water, he laced up his shoes and

he walked out of the house and he started up that mountain that

he had been seeing his entire life.

And he said in his mind, he thought, I'm, I'm strong enough.

I've got this. I've been looking at this

mountain long enough, I'm going to climb it.

And so for the first half of the climb, he felt great.

The sun was shining, the breeze was was cool.

The ground was steady underneath of his feet.

And he kept thinking, I knew I could handle this.

I've seen that mountain my entire life and it always looked

like an obstacle that I can never climb, but I knew I can

handle this. But about halfway up the climb

suddenly changed. Makes me think of the, the hike

that we took with the teenagers just a little bit ago when we

were in the mountains, the it's called the Devil's Marble Yard.

It was a nice little hike until all the sudden we turned into

this massive, massive stones everywhere and we had to climb

these stones. It was a great hike, but that's

what I think of when I think of this story.

But halfway up, he got to the point where he started thinking,

you know what? Maybe I don't have this.

Maybe I'm not as strong as I thought I was.

The rocks got loose, the sun got hotter, sweat poured down his

face, his legs started trembling.

The rocks started moving underneath of him a little bit,

and he started to get a little bit scared.

The next thing you know, and he slipped and he fell and he

scraped his hand and he got up and he kept going, but he

slipped and he fell again and he scraped his knee on a rock and

he got up and he kept going. He said, I'm going to make it to

the top of this mountain. I know I can make it to the top

of this mountain. He slipped and he fell again.

And that time he just stayed down there on his knees.

He was on a rock that was kind of balanced on what he felt like

was a little bit of a precarious situation.

And he didn't. He was too weak to go back down

and too unsure of himself to go back down because of the places

that he had already made it back up.

But he was too. It wasn't strong enough to make

it back up the mountain. And so he was stuck.

No water. His bottle of water had run out,

sweating in this hot sun. And now he started to think,

maybe I can't do it in my own strength.

It wasn't long after that a hiker came up behind him and saw

him in this situation. And he stopped.

And he said, hey, are you all right?

And he told him about a situation.

And the hiker said, listen, man, I've, I've hiked this mountain

hundreds of times. I know exactly where you need to

walk to get to the top of that mountain without slipping and

falling. You just stay right behind me.

You stick with my pace and I'll get you to the top.

And sure enough, they did. They made it to the top of that

mountain. But he realized as he was

climbing up there, and especially once he got to the

top, if I had relied on my own strength, I never would have

made it. See, the sooner we admit our

weakness, the sooner we discover His power, because the Christian

life is not about proving how strong we are, it's about

discovering how strong God is. See, a man doesn't know that God

is all he needs until he realizes that God is all he has.

And that's why many times God allows us to go through the

difficulties and the trials and the situations that we find

ourselves in. We have to get in the valley

many times for us to understand. I cannot go through this valley

by myself. We have to get in difficult

situations to help us understand.

I cannot get myself out of this. I cannot do it in my own

strength. I need God's strength.

See, the valley strips away everything we use to prop

ourselves up so we can fully lean on Him.

Stop trying to survive the valley in your own strength.

God isn't asking you to be strong, He's asking you to be

dependent on Him. He doesn't need you to be strong

in the difficult times. Sure, it helps.

Be strong in the Lord, in the and in the power of his might.

The Bible says, yes, be strong, but be strong in His power, not

in your own. God doesn't promise a life

without valleys, but He promises strength in the valley.

Your valley will break you if you rely on your own strength,

but it will build you if you rely on God's strength when

you're going through that valley.

Because see, valleys are a place that we all must pass through,

but a valley is also a place that proves where our strength

comes from. I want you to see this number 3

back in Psalm 84. The valley is a place where God

provides wells. Psalm 84, verse #6 Who passing

through the valley of Baca, make it a well?

The rain also filleth the pools. See, only God can turn tears

into wells. Only God can turn dry places

into springs. Only God can turn hard seasons

in your life into testimonies. Only God can turn brokenness

into blessing. Notice the verbs in this verse

passing through the valley of Baca.

Make it a well. That's all responsibility.

Your responsibility is to dig the well.

But then it says the rain also filleth the pools.

That's the responsibility that God takes on himself.

You can't do nothing about the rain, right?

You can dig a well. You can dig a, a depression in

the ground and, and, and make it a place to, to receive water,

but you can't make the water come.

You can do all the rain dances you want.

You're not going to make it rain.

Only God can, can, can cause it to rain.

In other words, you dig the wells, God sends the rain.

Your obedience creates a place for God's blessing.

Your faith creates a place for God's refreshing.

Your tears carve out a deeper place for God's presence.

Turn over a few pages back to Psalm 56.

Psalm 56. Maybe you've never seen this

verse before, but you know, you think about many times you're

going through a difficult situation, you're going through

a hard time. You're going through a valley

and you think God does not even know that I'm here.

God doesn't care that I'm here, even if he does know that I'm

here. He's just left me alone.

He's abandoned me and, and, and, and theologically speaking, and,

and when we're, when we're thinking clearly, we know that

God does not leave us alone. We know that God's not just

going to take us out there and abandoned us.

But you think about the children of Israel and that's exactly

what they thought, right? God was there, he was with them

the entire time. He was overseeing everything

that was happening. He was doing miracles for them

that they just overlooked. He did all kinds of things for

them. And how many times did they just

leave us out in the wilderness so that you can abandoned us?

We'd have been better off in Egypt if we did.

We had food, at least in Egypt. You brought us out here to

abandon us so that we can die, right?

And, and, and, and us looking at it from from our perspective, we

think, how stupid can you be, you Israelites?

Look at what God's doing for you.

Look how God's leading you. Look at the miracles that you've

gotten to see that nobody else has ever seen before.

Nobody ever saw the Red Sea part and you walked across on dry

ground. You think that was an accident

that God wasn't leading you and you should have stayed back in

Egypt. Nobody else had seen manna come

from the sky. Nobody else had seen quail that

provided food for them. Nobody else had seen water come

from a rock. Nobody else had seen bitter

waters turn to sweet that they could drink.

Nobody else had seen those things happen.

And yet they still, because they got into a difficult situation,

into a dry place, into a place where they felt abandoned by

God, they threw their fish up and they said, didn't you just

bring us out here to kill us? You should have just left us in

Egypt. We get that way in our own lives

many times. God, why are you bringing?

Why are you making me go through this?

All I'm trying to do is serve you.

All I'm trying to do is live for you.

All I'm trying to do is just do the right thing.

And here you've brought me into this valley.

Are you just going to leave me here?

Do you even know that I'm here? Can you even see me?

Look at the Bible says in Psalm 56 and verse #8 Thou tellest my

wanderings. Put thou my tears into thy

bottle. Are they not in thy book?

Isn't that an amazing thing? Not only does God know when

you're in the middle of a difficult situation, but He

keeps track of every single tear, puts those tears in a

bottle. He writes them down in his book.

He knows what you're going through.

He knows what you're dealing with.

He didn't leave you in the wilderness.

He didn't bring you into the valley to abandon you.

He's trying to teach you something through that valley.

God knows exactly what you're going through and he's, he's

watching very closely as you go through that valley.

What looks dry can become a well turn over to Isaiah 43.

What looks hopeless becomes a pool of refreshing.

What seems empty becomes filled with rain.

His grace, His comfort, His presence.

All things you would have never experienced if you had never

gone through the valley. But here's what the Bible says

in Isaiah 43 and verse #1 But now thus saith the Lord that

created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, fear

not. I have redeemed thee.

I have called thee by thy name. Thou art mine.

When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee, and

through the rivers they shall not overflow thee.

When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned,

neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.

Chapter 44. Verse #2 Thus saith the Lord

that made thee, and formed thee from the womb, which will help

thee. Fear not, O Jacob, my servant,

and thou just you run whom I have chosen.

For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon

the dry ground. I will pour my spirit upon thy

seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring.

God doesn't just bring you through the valley of Baca, He

brings blessings out of the valley of Baca.

Your valley can become a testimony.

Your valley can become a place of deeper prayer.

Your valley can become a well for others to drink from later.

See, God uses your experiences to help someone else along the

way. When the rains came, the valley

became a place of blessing, not just for you, but for everybody

who comes after you. You dig a well and God fills it

with water. The people who come after you

are going to be able to drink the water of that well when

you're long gone. God doesn't just bring you

through valleys. He uses your tears to create

wells for others. Your deepest sorrow may become

somebody else's greatest blessing.

Your valley becomes a reminder of God's faithfulness back over

in Psalm 84. I want you to see this.

Not only is the valley a place that we all must pass through,

the valley is a place that proves where our strength comes

from. It's a place where God provides

wells, but also a #4 the valley is a place where God promotes

our strength. Psalm 84 and verse #7 they go

from strength to strength. In other words, God uses the

valley to make you stronger. You don't come out of the valley

empty, defeated. You don't come out of the valley

broken. The valley becomes a training

ground for your faith. What the enemy meant for your

destruction becomes part of your development.

You come out stronger in faith. You come out stronger in

endurance. You come out stronger in prayer.

You come out stronger in character.

You come out stronger in trust, stronger in compassion for

others. The valley doesn't weaken you.

The valley is what gives you strength.

There's strength and help by the indwelling Spirit of God for

every situation. And I think that those who who

burn out either were never born again or they're trying to do

the Christian life. They're trying to live the

Christian life in their own strength.

We should be going from strength to strength, not from weakness

to weakness, not from defeat to defeat.

We should be going from strength to strength.

That's what he says we should be living from faith to faith as

we're told in Romans 117. We should be walking the path

that shine us more and more unto the perfect day.

That's not the path of self seeking.

That's not the path of worldliness.

That's not the path of doing it our own way.

It's the path of surrender to God's perfect will.

But if you're going through that valley and you are surrendered

to God, he will strengthen you through that valley.

You'll come out on the other side stronger.

You look at what happened with Job.

Oh, Job went through the valley of Baca.

Job went through a difficult time.

Job went through a horrible season in his life.

But he said when he had tried me, I shall come forth as gold.

That's what God wants for us when we go through a valley to

come out stronger on the other side.

He doesn't put us through those things to to destroy us.

He doesn't put us through those things because he's trying to

hurt us. He doesn't put us through those

things because I'm God and I can do this if I want to.

No, we realize that our true strength comes from him, but we

come out stronger on the other side because of him, Charles

Spurgeon wrote in his Treasury of David.

So far from being wearied, they gather strength as they proceed.

Each individual becomes happier, each company becomes more

numerous, each holy song more sweet and full.

We grow as we advance. If heaven be our goal, if we

spend our strength in God's ways, we shall find it.

Increase. See mountains.

Mountains give you views, but valleys give you victory.

You may feel we, but God says you're moving from strength to

strength, even if you can't see it.

I want to tell you this. Lastly, there in Psalm 84, not

only is the valley a place that we all must pass through, the

valley as a place that proves where our strength comes from.

The valley is a place where God provides wells.

The valley is a place that God promotes our strength.

But I want you to see this lastly, the valley is a place

that points us to God's presence.

The valley is a place that points us to God's presence.

Notice where they were going verse 7.

They go from strength to strength.

Every one of them in Zion appeareth before God.

See, Zion was the end of the March for those who are

travelling through the valley of Baca to Jerusalem.

They were on their way to Zion, the hill of Zion, to worship

God. That was the place where

everything met. It was the delight of all of

their hearts. Now, just a little side note

here, and obviously there's a lot in the rest of this passage

that I'm not going to discuss this morning, but the goal for

the devout Israelites as they marched through that valley was

to get to that, that, that that Mount Zion.

And it wasn't just because they were gathering together to

assemble is because they they were there to appear before God.

Zion is the place where God meets with his people.

And oh that that would be the desire of every sincere

Christian in this room this morning to not miss an

opportunity to be in his house, to look forward with great

anticipation to being in the presence of God.

Verse #10 makes it very clear for a day in thy courts is

better than 1000. I had rather be a doorkeeper in

the House of my God than to dwell in the tents of

wickedness. Your valley is not random.

Your valley is not meaningless. It's not wasted.

It's directional. It's taking you somewhere.

It's pointing you in a certain direction.

God uses every valley to pull you closer to Him.

He uses the valley to pull you deeper into His word.

He uses the valley to help you become more dependent on His

grace, to help you become more aware of His presence, to help

you, to make you more confident in His faithfulness.

The valley leads you to Zion, to the place of God's presence.

See, the valley of Baca is where God transformed your transforms

your tears into wells, your sorrow into strength, your your

journey into a deeper fellowship with him and into a deeper

relationship with Him. And if you're walking through

the Valley of Baca today, you're not alone, you're not forgotten,

you're not stuck, you're not abandoned.

God is with you in that valley. God makes valleys into wells,

and God wants to strengthen you through that valley.

And if you get to the end of yourself and realize it's not

me, it's him, then he will use that valley to help you get

closer to Him, to help you understand where your strength

really comes from. And you will come out on the

other side of that valley stronger than when you went in.

God will transform your valley into a well of blessing if you

allow Him to see. God never wastes the tears of

His children. Every tear has a purpose.

Every tear, everything that God allows you to go through, every,

every heartache that God allows you to experience, every

difficulty that God allows to come into your life.

God is not doing that just because he can, not doing it

just because he feels like it, not doing it just because he

doesn't care. God never wastes a tear.

He uses every one of those opportunities to help, to try to

draw us closer to Him. The sad thing is some people

will stay in that valley, or some people might come out on

the other side of that valley and never learn anything, and

they'll be right back in the middle of another one struggling

the same way. God doesn't just allow us to go

through valleys to not learn something through it.

He allows us to go through valleys so we can come out

stronger in His strength. On the other side.

A missionary told a story about a small village in Central

America that went through a severe drought.

The river dried up, the crops failed, the soil just turned

into powder. There was nothing that they

could do, and it was like the whole land had given up hope.

But there was an elderly farmer named Mateo who did something

very strange, at least in the eyes of the people that were

there in that village. Every morning, while everybody

else was complaining about the fact that there was no rain and

they were complaining about the fact that the ground was just

dust and there was nothing but heat, Mateo would walk out into

his property. He started digging holes in his

property. And every morning he did this

for for weeks on end, to the point where by the time he was

done, there was hundreds and hundreds of these holes on his

property. His neighbors thought he had

lost his mind. They asked him, why are you

digging? What's the purpose of it?

There's no rain. There's no, there's no point in

planting a seed in the ground. There's nothing here, there's no

water. We're in the middle of a

drought. Nothing can grow here.

But Mateo just kept digging, sweat pouring down his face,

hands blistered back aching. And he would always tell them,

rain always comes. Maybe not today, maybe not

tomorrow, but sooner or later. God is going to send the rain,

and when he does, I want the ground to be ready.

For weeks he dug in that heat that felt unbearable, and then

one night, as it always does, began to rain and the rain hit

that dry, parched ground for Mateo's property.

It filled up all those little holes with rain.

All those holes were finally full of water.

And within days, something miraculous happened.

All the seeds that he had planted began to sprout, and

actually trees started to grow on that property that they never

thought was going to produce much of anything.

Children played their animals, found water, their families

gathered for shade and rest, and eventually that place became

known as the garden in the valley.

The psalmist here in Psalm 84 says that the one who finds his

strength in God can walk through the valley of Baca, the valley

of weeping, the valley of tears, the valley of drought, and make

it a well. Bring your tears to God.

He can turn it into a well. Bring your weakness to God, He

can turn it into strength. Bring your valley to God.

He can turn it into victory. But only God can do that.

Walk through that valley with confidence because Zion, he's on

the other side, God's presence, where God is waiting to meet

with us. Maybe you'll find yourself in

the middle of a trial, a difficulty, A hardship,

something that you didn't know was coming.

It's a valley. Maybe you find yourself in the

middle of a spiritual hardship. Most of those we bring on

ourselves, but it doesn't make it any less difficult.

Maybe you're in a spiritual drought right now.

Most of those are brought on by us, brought on because of sin in

our lives and everything else. But it doesn't make it any less

difficult. You're in a valley, Valley of

weeping, the valley of of difficulty, the valley of

dryness. There's a lot of lessons that we

can learn when we're in a valley.

Hey, it's a valley that we're passing through.

It's not going to last forever, not going to last forever.

Keep your head up and keep your eyes on the one who can lead you

through it. Yeah.

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.

Hey, it's a valley that we have to pass through.

But it's also a valley that proves where our strength comes

from. It's a valley where God provides

his strength. It's where he provides his

wells. It's a valley where God promotes

our strength. And it's a valley that points us

to God's presence. Are you in a valley right now?

It's not pointless. God has a reason.

What are you going to learn through it?

Hey, you may not be in a valley right now, but you're probably

going to be going into one at some point.

Because we all do. We all face those difficulties.

We all go through those hardships.

They all go through those things that are difficult passing

through the Valley of Baca. Make it a well.

Maybe we can learn something from that.

This morning. Let's pray.

Father, again, we thank you so much for your goodness to us.

Thank you that even in the middle of a trial, you're with

us. Even in the middle of a drought,

you're with us. Even in the middle of difficult

times, you're there. God, may we learn from it what

you want us to learn from it. May it be a help to us, but

thank you again for all you do for us.

In Jesus name, Amen.