January is the month of new, of beginning fresh, of change. But right about the third week or so, I remember that new is overrated, beginning is hard, and change is uncomfortable. My dear friend, Leigha Balchus, is sharing her story of starting new. Be encouraged as she reminds us that the God of the mountaintop is also God of the valley.
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By Leigha Balchus
When we
think of new beginnings, it can bring excitement to our souls because new is
good. New is beautiful and fresh and
shiny. There are many new beginnings
that call for great celebrations, such as weddings, the birth of a child and even
a new year.
New is good…until it
isn’t. If we live long enough, we are
bound to be faced one day with a new beginning that isn’t all that exciting; one
that wasn’t planned and for which we never asked. A new beginning that makes us long for the days
of long ago because suddenly our past looks way better than the present or even
the future could ever be. We begin to
think that maybe our best days are behind us.
But then there is God, and He meets us in our quiet moments with Him,
right in the middle of our mess, and he whispers His Word into our hearts.
“Forget the former things; do not
dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new
thing! Now it springs up; do you not
perceive it? I am making a way in the
desert and streams in the wasteland.” (Isaiah 43:18-19)
This is
exactly the kind of “new thing” God has been doing in my life recently and is
still working on today. It started last
spring as I sat on the front porch of our Missouri home, reeling and feeling
sick over news we had received. My husband
and I had been entrusted with running a business, a Christian business,
nonetheless. Four years earlier, we felt
God’s calling on our lives to pack up everything and move our family far away
from our Texas home, so we left everything familiar behind and started over.
During those four years, we poured our hearts and souls into that business,
often canceling family vacations and working weekends to try to make it
successful, only to be faced with the words no one ever wants to hear, “We have
decided to move in a different direction.
You guys are just not a good fit.”
It was excruciating! We struggled
with the lie that we had failed God; that He was displeased with us and now we
were being punished. I remember thinking,
“Not again God. Please, not again!”,
because we had been here before. We had
experienced job loss in the past. It had
been horrible, and I was sure I couldn’t survive it again.
That’s exactly the moment where God met me,
right in the middle of my distress, the ugly mess life had dealt me, and He
whispered to my heart, “This is a gift.”
I was sure it was the Holy Spirit speaking to me because in that moment
that is the LAST thing I was thinking. I
was suddenly filled with peace, and my body stopped trembling from the
fear. Our circumstances hadn’t changed,
and I had no idea what it meant, but I knew in that moment there was hope and
that was enough. I shared with my
husband what God had spoken to me, and we prayed together that day that God
would rescue us and that this time wouldn’t be like it was before. Little did we know, the God of the universe
was rewriting our story and making it His.
This time would be nothing at all like the last. It would be greater than we ever asked or
imagined!
“Now to him who is able to do
immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at
work within us, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus
throughout all generations, for ever and ever!
Amen.” (Ephesians 3:20)
Just three
days later, there were already three job opportunities in the works! It was so refreshing and so soothing to our
souls. We were in awe of God’s
provision! Each time we would start to
panic, God would bring scripture to mind that would squelch the fear. One that really made a huge impact on us was,
“The Lord will fight for you; you need only be still.” (Exodus 14:14)
And, boy did He ever! Three different interviews and two months later
brought three job offers and our heads were spinning! As we prayed, the one we knew God was nudging
us toward wasn’t the choice for which we had hoped. The job God wanted us to accept required bold
faith and much more sacrifice than we ever anticipated. It required saying goodbye to a home we loved
with wonderful friends and neighbors, a great school for our kids, an amazing
church family, a LIFE that we had absolutely fallen in love with, to move
halfway across the country to a small town in West Virginia and…Start. All. Over. AGAIN.
It
was a new beginning we hadn’t asked for and really didn’t want. I thought we must have heard God wrong. This
couldn’t possibly be what He wanted. I
wrestled with God and with myself and my faith.
And, just as the Israelites had done while wandering through the desert,
I got angry and I grumbled and complained and doubted His promises along the
way because, well, let’s face it, unwelcomed change is NEVER pleasant and
walking in blind obedience in a direction we don’t want to go can nearly break
us in two. Even the most faithful of
believers can fall victim to fear, doubt and uncertainty when we are handed a
new beginning that feels so much like the end.
It’s hard to see anything good, anything new, at first, when everything
around us looks like an ending. Our life
suddenly becomes unrecognizable and fear sets in. Darkness surrounds us and we
feel trapped like we will never see the light again. Suddenly, we find
ourselves walking in a dark valley.
Change. There it is.
That word. Oh, how I despise it, but
life has taught me that change is what gives birth to new beginnings. Always.
It is impossible to begin anything new without first saying goodbye to
something old, something familiar, something comfortable. Comfortable feels so nice, but there is no
growth in the comfortable, and our Heavenly Father wants to grow us to become
more and more like Jesus. It is our
number one calling, and we can never be all we were created to be if we stay in
our comfort zone. So, we must TRUST.
“Trust in the Lord with all your
heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him,
and He will make your paths straight.” (Proverbs 3:5-6)
We must
trust God with all our hearts, even when we don’t understand. When circumstances look nothing like anything
we ever wanted for our lives and all our plans and all our dreams have been
smashed and we feel lost and alone, we MUST keep our eyes fixed on God and His
Word. He is the same yesterday, today
and tomorrow. He never changes. He has
promised to never leave us nor forsake us.
And, when we feel like giving up, like we have not one more drop of
faith left to squeeze out, we must ask God to help us overcome our unbelief because
nothing is impossible with Him. This
will help us to keep HOPE alive.
“Let us hold unswervingly to the hope
we profess, for he who promised is faithful” (Hebrews 10:23)
Following
hard after God isn’t easy. No one ever
promised it would be, but I have walked in the valley enough times to know that
He is most definitely faithful and His Word has the power to get us through even
the darkest of times. If we will saturate
ourselves in it as often as possible and hide it in our hearts, he will use it
to speak to us in our darkest hours, if we will only be still and listen. Through His Word He will give us hope to
sustain us until the storm subsides.
And, through it all, we can rest in Him knowing that we are covered by
His grace and His mercy. He understands
our hearts because He created them. He
knows our thoughts and our feelings before we ever have them. So when we feel lost and afraid, angry with
God, like our best days are behind us, like giving up, when everything feels
upside-down and inside-out and it seems as though God can’t possibly know what
He’s doing, when we are unraveled and undone into a million little pieces that
can’t possibly be put back together again, there He is with His arms wide open
waiting to embrace us, catching every tear that falls, loving us through it all
and swallowing us up with His amazing grace.
He is the glue that will put us back together and He will create a
masterpiece with all those broken pieces that is far more beautiful than we
could have ever imagined. He knows the plan, so why do we worry so much? Instead, he wants us to find rest in Him.
“For I know the plans I have for
you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to
give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11)
As I sit
here today typing this post, I look out and see the mountains of West Virginia
surrounding me in every direction, dwarfing me in their majestic presence, and I
am reminded of the One who created them.
I am reminded that these mountains are a part of my story and that there
can’t be mountains without valleys in between. Although, the beauty of the valleys may be
lost while we are in the middle of them, it is the valleys that make the
mountaintops so breathtaking. It is only
from the mountaintop that we can look down and see the amazing beauty of the
valleys in all their wonder. It is where
the sun shines bright and casts away the darkness. Only then can we see how far we have come and
the paths we have taken to get there. That
is when it all makes sense.
So as I walk
in the valley today and it’s hard to see where I am going, I am reminded that
I’m on the most beautiful path of all, one forged by my Heavenly Father just
for me, and it’s a gift. I am praying
and waiting in great expectation as I continue to put one foot in front of the
other. Even though some days still feel
like the end and I find myself longing for days passed, I give myself grace and
remind myself that there is a new beginning just up ahead, a glorious
mountaintop where I will look down at the beauty of all the pain and the
sacrifice, and I will thank my God for where He has brought me.
Yes, the mountaintop is coming and it’s going
to be good! So, if you are walking
through a valley today, no matter how dark and lonely it may feel, know that
you are never alone. Cry out to God in
prayer. Ask Him to reveal Himself to you
as you spend time in His Word. Keep hope
alive, and then watch Him make a way out of the darkness, and follow wherever
He leads, putting one foot in front of the other. And, when we finally stand on that
mountaintop, the sun shining bright and warm on our faces, let us all rejoice
and bloom where we’re planted!
“But blessed is the man who trusts in
the Lord, whose confidence is in Him. He
will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the
stream. It does not fear when heat
comes; its leaves are always green. It
has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.” (Jeremiah
17:7-8)
