Weekly Encouragement

Littered Valley
Saturday, November 11, 2017 by Tyler Robertson

It’s an exhilaration that is unmatched when you experience the Presence, the Love, Our God.  You never want to come down and just want to keep climbing higher to bask just a little bit longer.  Then it comes crashing down in a heartbeat.  Reality, troubles, discouragement, pain, and heartache war for your attention and concern.

I am so tired of holding it all together and pretending that everything is all right in my world.  I can’t lie to God (He knows my every thought), so why do I continue to lie to myself? 

This psalm comes from a deep place of pain, one of abject loneliness.  The day prior, I experienced wonderful success in the Presence of the One.  Following that, I was attacked with discouragement, vicious words and lies being spoken that He has forsaken me.  Threatening to drown, I cried out in the only way I could.  I sang.  I sang of pain.  I sang of Love.  That is where He met me.  Crying in the skeletons that the enemy created.  He picked me up and told me the most loving things.  I soaked in the sweetness of His Love for me.

I was reading the book of Ezekiel during this time.  Within the book of Ezekiel is the Valley of Dry Bones vision.  The valley I found myself in was not one where the dried bones of the Army of God are settled but a macabre graveyard.  I encourage you to read Ezekiel 37 to visualize the difference.

 

 LITTERED VALLEY

Why Lord do you have me in this place?

Why I am having such feelings of failure?

Day in and day out I am being beaten down.

These words and expressions

Hurt like hurled rocks.

Being buried below mountains of inadequacy.

 

Come to my rescue, oh Lord,

In this time of need.

My chest hurts and the struggle is hard.

Uphill I crawl with more weight on my back.

Family, Faith, I FEEL forsaken.

 

I have tasted of your presence, the sweetness of life.

But I want to drink deeply.

Why am I here, Lord? What is this place?

I’m left to walk alone in the desert of my mind.

My call for you seems to echo with no answered reply.

Can you hear me from this low to your place on high?

 

I want to do good, I want Your heart.

I realize how it must be to crucify me daily.

Work is work with no gratification.

The bread and meat are just bland.

 

I want to be in the field sowing your seed.

Toiling under the Holy Son.

My sweat will water the ground.

Your Life will bring forth life.

 

Emotions run so high to fall right among the bones

They litter my valley floor and beckon me to join.

“Lay your head down, rest among us”

They whisper their stories of my failures and flaws.

 

Through my tears and my shame, I stumble and fall.

Why bothering getting up and try to go on.

The dirt seems to beckon and call me by name.

“Lay your head down, come and rest”

 

In this valley of my failures under this veil of tears

Cries and sobs have muffled the Lord’s approach.

All I can see are His feet for I dare not look up.

Who am I?  What is my worth that the King would seek me out?

 

His feet are dusty and dirty.  How can this be?

He kneels to the dirt.  What is He doing?

I cry out, “I’m unworthy! For Holy is the Lamb”

His tenderness to me as He holds out His hand

“Come with me”

 

His hand is rough but strong as I’m raised to my feet.

We start to walk, hand in hand.

The ground that was littered with bones is now clear.

All of it brushed aside.

 

“Come, my Son, this valley is no place for you”

My heart begins to beat again and the tears flow anew

Damn the valley and damn my fears.

He smiles back at me.

I realize I am stronger than I was before.

 

He has brought me to a higher height

That the depths of my low cannot compare.

So, I praise His Name and worship the Lord.

For He alone is Worthy!

 

By: Tyler Robertson

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