1 Kings 20:16-30

the God both of Hills and Valleys

1 Kings 20:16

What is God to us? Is He only the God of the hills? We expect religion to serve us when we come to the great summits of experience. There are times of rapture and of vision when we seem naturally to stand with God on the holy mountains. We have our Moriah, our Pisgah, our Tabor, our Hermon. But is that all?

No! God is with us in the valleys. When we descend into the valley of weeping, Psalms 84:6, r.v., the valley of the shadow of death, the valley of obscurity and loneliness, the valley of conflict, we can say with the psalmist, “Thou art with me,” Psalms 23:4. Most of us, perhaps, spend the larger part of life in the valleys, walking among commonplace duties. Let us see to it that in these shadowed days we walk in close companionship with the Divine Friend; that, when the path ascends and the mountain-breeze is on our faces and the view widens, we may stand with God on our high places as with hinds' feet. See Habakkuk 3:19.