Blessed is the man whose strength is in You

..... Whose heart is set on pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a spring; the rain also covers it with pools. they go from strength to strength; each one appears before God in Zion (Psalm 84:5-7). The Psalmist's destiny was Zion, our is heaven. And the Psalmist's pilgrimage (journey) is from an unspecified, but distant place. The valley of Baca may or may not, be a geographical place. The sense of the Hebrew however, is that is it a dry and thirsty valley, but it is also a valley of weeping, a place of pain and difficulty. Baca is apparently a balsam tree that “bleeds” resin, hence weeping. The application is clear, it is that on our pilgrimage we must necessarily pass through difficult times, dry times, and times of weeping. And of course we are blessed when we make the Lord our strength.

It is “we” who “make” the valley of Beca a place of springs, but it is alos about cooperation with Him, about receiving His grace. After all we are God's co-workers (1 Cor 3:9). It is easy to get this wrong either thinking it is all up to us, or that it's all up to God and so we just sit back and watch. It is complicated, because there are times He tells us to do just that. In this particular case, the Psalmist is stressing that we have a significant part to play. I am thinking about two people I know both of whom had strokes, that left them quite limited. Both went to physiotherapy (or physio – terrorism as one friend calls it). One of them expected the physio therapists to do it all for him and made very little improvement. The other surprised the doctors by her progress. She is a fighter, the first one not. All this to say that our response to our pilgrimage when it gets tough, is a crossroads. We can either make it a spring, a place where we tap into the living water of the Holy Spirit, or we die of thirst!

To say this another way, it is our response to the difficulties of life that make the difference between it being a place of strengthening, or a place of defeat. If we are just wanting to get rid of the pain, of the difficulties, we will not grow, and we will not heal from the hurts of our journey. If we truly believe that God is working all things our for our good (Romans 8:28), then the faith response is to press into Him, and to ask Him “What is it Lord that You want to teach me through this trail?” But let's make no mistake about it, God always leads us in triumphant procession in Christ (2 Corinthians 2:14). This does not mean that we do not grieve loss, nor that we will not struggle to let go of what we might need to let go of. What it does mean, is that when we cooperate with God we can be sure that He who began a good work in us will keep right on doing it until the day we get to meet Him (Philippians 1:6). And when we do this we become watering holes (pools of water) for other thirsty pilgrims.

Father we are weak but You are strong. But also when we are weak and we cooperate, it give You the opportunity to make Your strength perfect in our weakness. Your grace is sufficient Lord (2 Corinthians 12:9), help us to determine always to embrace it in Jesus Name Amen