You have to go through the valleys to get to the mountaintop.  I don’t know about you, but God has shown me more and given me more nourishment and refreshment in the valleys than on the mountaintop.

A while back I was going through a dark valley in my life, a difficult time.  I walked into one of our Saturday evening services and sat down front.  And as I looked at the words of the worship songs on the screen, as I took in the drama, it was like those words gave me spiritual calories and nourishment and refreshment that words cannot describe.  Tears began to roll down my checks.  I said, “God, you are so gracious.  Here I am in this valley and you are feeding me.  You are talking care of me and I am walking through the valley of the shadow of death.”  The Bible didn’t say that we should camp out in the valley or chill out in the valley or stop in the valley or have a rest station in the valley.  It says that we should go through the valley.  No matter what you are going through, remember, if you shadow the Good Shepherd, you are going through.  And sometimes when you are in these valleys, you can’t see any still or quiet water.  You can’t hear any streams.  You can’t even see any grass.

If you study about a shepherd, you will learn that when the going really gets tough for the sheep, he would take his rod and staff and knock fruit off a tree, open it up and even if there wasn’t any grass or water, he would feed the sheep by doing this.  He would feed them while leading them.  Well the Good Shepherd does that in our lives, doesn’t He?  If we stay faithful to Him, He will feed us along the way.

Ed Young said, and most people like to fill those blanks in, and you can save these outlines and refer back to them.