How to Get Through What You’re Going Through

Summer in the Psalms ‘23

Allen Snapp

Grace Community Church

August 27, 2023

How to Get Through What You’re Going Through

Our last Summer in the Psalms message will be from Psalm 84.

How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts! ² My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God. ³ Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, at your altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God. ⁴ Blessed are those who dwell in your house, ever singing your praise! Selah

⁵ Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion.
⁶ As they go through the Valley of Baca they make it a place of springs; the early rain also covers it with pools. ⁷ They go from strength to strength; each one appears before God in Zion. ⁸ O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer; give ear, O God of Jacob! Selah
⁹ Behold our shield, O God; look on the face of your anointed! ¹⁰ For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness. ¹¹ For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly. ¹² O Lord of hosts, blessed is the one who trusts in you!

Let’s ask God for His anointing on His word this morning.

The verses I want us to particularly focus on this morning are vv. 5-7 Last week Ps 46 encouraged us to be still and know that God is God. Sometimes we need to be still, to quiet our souls, to reflect on who God is, get our bearings, make sure our souls are anchored to God. Sometimes we need to be still.

And sometimes we need to keep moving. Ps. 84 is a “keep moving and know that God is God” psalm. Especially in hard times. In sad times. Like the saying goes, when you’re going through a hard time, keep going! I’ve titled this message How To Get Through What You’re Going Through.

The setting for this psalm is about making the journey to the house of God in Jerusalem. The psalmist loves the presence of God and longs to be in His house, which represents His presence. Thankfully today we don’t need to travel to a temple in Jerusalem to be in the presence of God. Jesus is our Immanuel, God with us, and he indwells us by the Person of the Holy Spirit.

But the Christian life is a pilgrimage, a pilgrimage that begins when we hear Jesus say to us “follow me” and we begin our Christian “walk”. God told Abraham to go. Jesus commands us to “go”. When we trust God in all our “ways” God promises to make our “paths” straight. Peter calls us “sojourners” in this world, on a journey, just passing through this world. Paul says he presses on, always moving forward towards the prize of the high calling of Jesus Christ. Movement, movement, movement.

So it turns out Rascal Flatts was right; life really is a highway. ⁵ Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways…. BTW, the words “to Zion” aren’t in the original Hebrew text, they were added to clarify the meaning. Blessed are those whose hearts are highways towards God.

When Janice and I were at a major crossroads in our life with some big decisions and changes coming, I

remember her dad encouraged us to “enjoy the journey.” I think he meant don’t get so consumed with

where you want to go that you miss the beauty of the journey getting there. Every day is a gift from God – enjoy the journey! But blessed are those in whose hearts are the highways. Who remember this

world is not our home. We’re just passing through.

And sometimes as we travel with God, on the highway of life, we go through trials. We go through hard times. We go through painful experiences, suffering, sadness, and times of want.

⁶ As they go through the Valley of Baca they make it a place of springs; the early rain also covers it with pools.

The valley of Baca means the valley of weeping. We need to go through valleys of weeping sometimes. God can meet us in a special way in the valley of weeping. They make it a place of springs. They turn the valley of weeping into a place of refreshing, a place of springs. When we walk with God and find our strength in God, the place where we weep – that season of our journey that is a valley, that has tears, rather than destroying our faith, destroying our hope, refreshes our faith, refreshes our hope. We can enter into the fellowship of Jesus’ sufferings and know God in a deeper, more intimate way.

God’s grace in a hard valley can be an early rain that causes us to grow and thrive in ways that sunshine and easy times never can. Dry places can become abundant places when we are walking through them with God. The valley of weeping can be a special place for us. Often we get to know God better through weeping than we do through laughter. The valley of weeping leaves our hearts just raw enough to feel our need for God, just hurting enough to long for God. Just soft enough to be still and know that He is God. Many of us have met God in a powerful way in the valley of weeping.

That’s a precious thing, but that’s not my point this morning. The point I want to draw out of these verses is simply this: when God has us go through the valley of weeping He means for us to go through the valley of weeping, not stay there!

I’m not saying we can or should rush it. I’m not saying that we’ll always get through the valleys in our lives quickly. That’s up to God. I’m just saying we’re not meant to pitch our tents in the valley and stop moving forward. The valley may go on a lot longer than you want it to, that’s God’s call. But the momentum of these verses says when you go through a hard time, keep going! Don’t stop there, don’t camp out there!

The way we get through what we’re going through is to keep going through. God gives us strength to keep going, keep moving. God has put a highway in our hearts – not a cul-de-sac, not a dead end, not a parking lot, a highway. Highways are for moving, not parking!

1. When valleys make it hard to see any good coming our way – persevere!

The thing about valleys is that you can’t see very far in any direction. Peripheral sight is completely

blocked by the walls of the valley and you can’t see far ahead in a valley either.

Valleys in life are like that too. When we’re in a valley of trial or loss or discouragement, it’s hard to see beyond today. As far as we look, all we see is valley. We feel like the valley will never end. We’ll never get to the other side. And that can discourage us so much we give up.

ILL. In the early morning hours of July 4, 1952 Florence Chadwick attempted to become the first woman to swim from Catalina Island to the California coast. The 21-mile swim through shark-infested waters began on a foggy morning and after 15 hours of swimming in the cold and fog she begged for the support boat to take her out of the water. They encouraged her to keep going but she was so physically and emotionally exhausted that she just stopped swimming and they had to haul her onboard. Once on the boat she discovered she was less than a half-mile from the shore.

At a news conference the next day she said, “All I could see was the fog.…I think if I could have seen the shore, I would have made it.” Two months later, she tried again and even though the fog was just as dense, this time she made it.

No one goes into a valley for the view! No one goes into a valley to watch a sunset or enjoy the horizon. Valleys block and limit our vision. When we’re in a low trough in our lives, it can feel like we’ll never get out of it. We can’t see a better horizon from the valley, and that can leave us emotionally and physically exhausted. Maybe someone here is in that place now. Keep going! Keep pressing on!

I can recall a time when the walls of discouragement closed in on me. I’m a pretty stubborn optimist – ask my wife – but God had me go through a season where all I could see was the valley and I felt like giving up. We can’t always determine the length or depth of the valley, but we can lean on God for strength and I remember calling out for God’s help and strength, and by His grace I began to see with eyes of faith. The valley walls were still there – nothing had changed except I began to see what God could do. What I believed God would do. Hope began to rise in my heart again.

The Bible says that hard times produce perseverance. Perseverance means you keep going. You don’t give up. Don’t quit. Don’t resign. You keep going through what you’re going through.

2. Remember your destination

They go from strength to strength; each one appears before God in Zion. Vs. 7

They go from strength to strength. Do you hear the motion in that? They are moving, going, a highway in their heart that’s taking them into the presence of God in Zion. The destination isn’t the valley, not the trial. The destination is God. As we travel through life, we need to remember our destination.

Romans 8:29 says that God predestined us to be conformed to the image of His Son. Our destination is to be more like Jesus. That’s our destiny and that’s our identity.

One of the ways we can stop going through what we’re going through and pitch a tent in the valley is by trying to derive our identity from our trial. We make the valley our destination.

• We get hurt – that’s the valley. But when we refuse to forgive and dream of revenge, we make the hurt our home and become bitter.
• We experience failure – that’s the valley. But when we label ourselves a failure we make failure our destination. We stop taking risks. We expect to fail.
• People disappoint us, circumstances disappoint us - that’s the valley. When we allow ourselves to become cynical and suspicious of people; when we decide life will always deal us a bad hand, we make disappointment our permanent zip code.

How can we tell the difference between going through a valley and making that valley our destination? This might seem strange but do a sniff test. This probably came to mind because the other day I smelled a smell in our garage that I was pretty sure meant something had died. So Janice and I did a thorough cleaning of the garage, and sure enough, there in a 5 gallon bucket filled with wood scraps we found a dead chipmunk. Yuck!

If that chipmunk had entered our garage, kept moving, and left our garage, it wouldn’t have stunk up the garage. For whatever reason – I don’t know if it got stuck in the bucket and couldn’t get out, but it made the garage its permanent destination and started to stink things up.

Sniff test means if we start to smell unforgiveness or bitterness it doesn’t just mean we’ve been hurt. It means we’ve pitched our tent in hurt. Hurt has become our identity and unforgiven hurt will over time become bitterness and bitterness stinks. Get back up and keep moving! Let go of unforgiveness and move towards forgiveness. Stop letting them live rent-free in your head. Even if the situation isn’t reconciled, forgive them, love them, pray for them, and move on.

What does your attitude smell like? Be honest. If you’re resigned to failure or reek of self-pity or constantly compare yourself to others or just don’t care – you’ve probably pitched a tent in a valley and it’s time to move on by repenting of that attitude and cleaning out the garbage. The Bible doesn’t say we go from hurt to hurt, failure to failure or disappointment to disappointment. It says we go from strength to strength and we get that strength from God.

Whatever the valley, whatever the weeping, God wants to meet you there. I don’t want to make light of the valleys. Some can be deep and long. This isn’t a “just get over it” message. It may take time and a lot of tears. But remember, the valley isn’t the destination, Jesus is. Appearing before God as His precious daughter is your destination. Appearing before God as His precious son is your destination.

Your valley may be a hard, long battle, but your destination is “more than a conqueror through Christ”. Your valley might be being misunderstood and mistreated, but your destination is “chosen by God before the foundation of the world.” Your valley might be a long road filled with weariness, but your destination is to finish the race and receive the crown of life. Your destination is to be like Christ and to be with Christ forever.

God is with you to give you strength to go through what you’re going through and get to the other side!