5 Powerful Truths About Trusting God in the Valley
I weave through a mantle of green rose bushes, wood nettle, and poison oak. It’s growing darker here in the valley behind our house. I’m sure our children are racing across the backyard in the evening sunlight, but it feels like night in the valley. As I walk, I consider what trusting God in the valley really looks like.
Trusting God in the Valley
As the valley walls block out the sun’s last rays, I recall a valley we faced when winter’s arms still stretched white over these hills.
I rest on a fallen sycamore and watch trout jump as they eat the flies rising from black water.
Looking back, I remember hoping for a season of abundance but finding mostly darkness. I remember months of praying for direction and wondering where God was leading. I also remember what he showed me in the valley. Here are a few of those lessons about trusting God in the valley.
Be sure to read to the end of today’s post for a free devotional eBook to help you grow in trust as you walk through the valley.
Lessons From the Valley
1. You can trust God in the valley because some lessons must be learned in the darkness.
God transforms us in the dark places. Our hearts are shaped when it’s hard to see him.
We are refined in the dark.
Faith grows in the dark.
In the dark, the imprint of Christ’s light is forged upon our hearts.
We don’t know if our faith is strong enough to stand on until it is tested. We don’t know if our God is big enough to carry us through the valley until we can no longer walk on our own.
Trusting God in the valley means we allow him to let the darkness conform us into image, even when it hurts.
If your valley feels dark today, ask God to keep carrying you. Ask him to fill you with his hope. Meanwhile, trust that he is doing unseen work in your heart and life. He is molding you into the image of his Son.
2. Trusting God in the valley includes walking forward when you don’t understand what God is doing.
Has God led you to a valley in which you cannot understand what he is doing?
It’s not easy to keep moving forward when God doesn’t seem good and his ways don’t make sense.
Nevertheless, at times, we cannot know or understand God’s ways. We can only see part of the story.
Friend, your story is bigger than what you can see.
The key is to keep walking and keep obeying God, especially when you don’t understand the purpose. Today, I encourage you to keep putting one foot in front of the other as you walk through this difficult time.
We move forward by continuing to press on when the valley seems never-ending. It will end. Until then, keep your eyes on the Lord and don’t stop moving.
3. God wants your valley to point to his goodness.
Anyone can praise God’s goodness on the mountaintops of life. When we learn to point to God’s goodness in our deepest suffering, we point the world to unshakeable hope. Others are drawn to Jesus when they see the hope we have.
Watch for his hand, and when you cannot see him, stand on his promises.
Trusting God in the valley includes keeping a soft heart, always ready to testify to his goodness in your life, especially when life is hard. #trustingGod #encounteringGod Share on X4. Life’s valleys often hold the answers to our prayers.
Valleys aren’t comfortable. Our culture encourages us to arrange our lives around comfort. However, when we arrange our lives to pursue comfort, we lose access to the precise instruments that will bring our prayers to fruition.
In the valley, we come to know Christ more deeply as we share in his sufferings, ache with broken hearts, and have nowhere to turn but his everlasting arms. We learn to trust God by enduring situations in which trusting him is difficult. Life’s valleys teach us to trust God. In this way, they often hold the answers to our prayers.
5. The valley teaches lessons about unshakeable joy.
James reminds us that we can count trials as pure joy because they bring us to maturity and completion (see James 1:2-4).
The truest kind of joy transforms us into the likeness of Christ, and this kind of transformation often requires suffering.
Trusting God in the valley takes faith, but as we cling to him, we trust that he is forming us into the people he wants us to become.
As for me, I walk through the valley until the sun sinks low. I thank God for the lessons I’ve learned in life’s darkest seasons, and I trust that the One who walks with me through every valley will never leave my side.
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If these insights on trusting God in the valley have encouraged you, I invite you to explore our library of family devotional books and free devotional eBooks below. May your trust grow as you turn to God in the valleys of life.
Calling All Parents and Grandparents!
As the parent of two sons and a daughter, I have a heart for helping parents develop deeper relationships with their children and with God. Our kids, ages 7, 12, and 16, share this vision. They have helped me write three family devotionals for parents or older relatives to read with the children and teens they love. I also recently released a teen devotional called Anchored, designed to help teens learn key biblical narratives and apply them to their lives. You can find these books here or read more below. 
Mother-Daughter Devotionals by a Mom and Daughter
Girl to Girl: 60 Mother-Daughter Devotions for a Closer Relationship and Deeper Faith is written for girls ages 7-12. It includes 60 devotions with Scripture, conversation starters, and a shared journaling section for moms and daughters after each devotion. I wrote this book with the help of our daughter, Bekah, when she was eleven. Find this one-of-a-kind shared devotional here.
Heart to Heart: A Mother-Daughter Devotional With 50 Devotions for Teen Girls is for teenage girls ages 13-20. It includes 50 devotions, each with a shared journaling section to help moms and daughters connect through writing. This is a great book for moms who want to communicate about awkward topics—like dating, sexuality, peer pressure, and more—but don’t know where to start. Bekah and I will help you right here.
Devotions for Boys by Boys
God’s Warrior: Devotions for Boys Who Want to Grow in Courage and Strength helps young boys, ages 5-13, learn what it means to trust God and become strong warriors for his kingdom. Now, more than ever, our world needs men who are willing to boldly carry God’s love into the world. I wrote this boys’ devotional book with our two young sons, Aiden and Caleb, ages six and eleven! You’ll enjoy their honesty as we teach boys how to be strong warriors for the Lord. Find this life-changing devotional book here.
These Books Are Free on Kindle Unlimited: God Wants to Heal, Restore, and Refresh You
God wants to work in your life to accomplish what you’ve been unable to do through willpower alone. He also wants to help you establish a rhythm of meeting with him daily as you trust him with the hard parts of your life. Click here to explore two books that will guide you: Be Still and Trust and Lean Into Grace. They are free on the Kindle Unlimited program and for sale in print.
Download Your Free Devotional Here
Set Free: Let God Do What You Cannot explores ten realms in which most of us need God to work in our lives and bring deliverance. We’ll talk about finding freedom from fear, worry, insecurity, bad habits, emotional pain, and more. This short online devotional will bless you as you let God accomplish what you’ve been unable to achieve through willpower. Get your download for free with promo code GRACE or for a donation of 3.99 here. Thank you. This small gift helps keep this ministry running.
I also offer a library of free online devotional eBooks for free. I invite you to explore the collection right here!
