Mountains and Valleys

We live in a culture obsessed with the highlight reel. We readily share our mountaintop victories—the promotions, the milestones, the idyllic family dinners—while hiding our arguments, failures, brokenness, and deep valleys. Fear tells us that if people see the real, unvarnished parts of our journey, we will face judgment, be labeled as broken, or ruin the reputations we have worked so hard to build. Yet keeping our hardest seasons hidden leaves us carrying the weight of shame alone.

Smooth paths make terrible navigators. When life is going well, it is easy to shift into spiritual cruise control, coasting on top of the mountain while slowly drifting into self-reliance and spiritual amnesia. Comfort and prosperity often persuade us that our own hustle and intelligence created our peace, blinding us to our deep need for God. Yet, you cannot build a new neural pathway or a deep spiritual habit in the middle of a panic attack; if you wait until you are drowning in a dark valley to learn how to pray, your own biology and habits will fight you.

We live in a culture obsessed with curated perfection—pristine schedules, flawless kids, optimized mental health, and polished public images. Yet, when we read the story of Jesus, we discover that He never promises us a friction-free, comfortable life. In fact, He guarantees that trouble will find us. But right alongside that warning, He offers a far deeper guarantee: His unshakeable presence. Presence will always be infinitely better than preference. Having someone who loves you stand beside you in the middle of a brutal storm is far sweeter than standing alone in pleasant weather. Psalm 23 captures this reality by reminding us that even when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we fear no evil—not because the scary shadows vanish overnight, but because the Shepherd walks directly beside us.

Life often feels like an exhausting attempt to optimize away our pain. We buy into new routines, avoid difficult people, and purchase the right gear, hoping that if we just assemble the proper tools, life will be smooth sailing. But when dark valleys inevitably arrive—when the job loss happens, the diagnosis comes, or the prayer seems to go unanswered—our faith can shatter. We assume that following Jesus was supposed to make life easy, and when it isn’t, we turn cynical, feel like victims, or blameworst, walk away from God entirely under the false guilt that we simply didn’t have “enough faith.”