Two Valleys, Running Side by Side

                 There are two valleys that run side by side.  It is hard to see them coming till you are right on top of them, two entrances side by side.  The difference is where the valleys end up.  Head down the one and you reconnect with the journey of your life.  Head down the other, and it will come to an End.

          How do you know that you are in the valley where you can survive?  It is always dark in that valley.  The shadows are deep and permanent.  When you are in that valley, you know you are in it.  Because in the gloom and doubt, you know somewhere in your heart where that shadow is coming from.  It is not so easy to wrap your head around this knowledge, because it seems impossible.  What overshadows the one valley is the other. 

          It will seem impossible.  There are no mountains, no hills beyond those that cast shadows as the light of day makes its progression.  No, in this case, the shadow is omnipresent.  Always there, never diminishing.  Even in the night, you know it is there. 

What is hard to see in the all-pervasive shadow is that there are trails that come into this valley from the other.  It is even harder to see those trails in the other valley.  In fact, if it weren’t for the Guide over there, people miss the opportunity to cross from one to the other.

The question then, why would someone want to cross from that valley into a valley deep in shadow?  Because of the nature of that Valley casting the shadow.  Because there is Evil there.  Evil unrestrained, uncontained, evil to be feared because it will take everything, even your life.  Because that is the Valley of Death.

Once you head down that Valley, it leads, unmitigated, to the End.  And not in some quiet, dignified manner, but in one that carries the burden of an eternity of Horror.  When you start down that Valley, your only hope is in the Guide.  The Guide is in the Valley of Death.  The Guide has been, is the only one, to have gone down to the End, to the Death, and come back. 

And it sounds weird, but the Guide is the one seeking to turn you into the Shadows.  Because in that other Valley, the Valley of the Shadow of Death, the Guide reigns supreme.  There is no evil to be feared in the Valley of the Shadow of Death.  Even if the end is coming, death itself is rising up, in the shadowed valley, it is along a comforted path, and not to the End of Death unlimited, but to the doorway of death into life eternal.

So how do we meet the Guide?  Its kind of interesting.  You call out for the Guide and He will be there.  He is unfailing in His love for all of us.  The interesting part is that once we have called out for Him, once He has come into our lives, we come to realize He was always there.  It was we who were unable to see Him.

So when we find ourselves in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, we have nothing to fear.  For Jesus is there with us.  Jesus knows the way.  Jesus has been down the Valley of Death and taken up the burden that lays there.  He took it upon Himself so that we do not have to.  Then our God took the burden off His shoulders and sent Him back to us.  As a gift.  Believe in Him and receive that gift, never know the burden of Death.  At the end of this life, we will know a doorway instead that leads to Eternity.

Peace,

Pastor Peter