when you find yourself in a valley

Earlier this year I was blessed with the opportunity to go to the Generation Unleashed youth conference. It was such a powerful time of being in God’s presence. God did some amazing things in my life and I was filled with this new passion to pursue Him like never before. It was an unforgettable experience and I learned some powerful, challenging, and encouraging things.
 

 
This morning, with a cup of tea in-hand, I was reading over my notes that I took while I was at the youth conference. I had not anticipated to re-discover the powerful reminders that I came across. When I came upon the section titled when you find yourself in a valley my heart kind-of did this partial leap, and then stopped. Immediately I knew this section was going to be one of those challenging yet powerful lessons, scratch that, it was going to be one of those very challenging yet very powerful lessons.
 
Despite what I was anticipating at that moment, I knew that I didn’t want to rush over this section, and so, I thought maybe if I rewrote it, the words would sink a little deeper, and perhaps it would be encouraging and helpful to you as well.
 
When You Find Yourself in a Valley
 
- Stay Active

keep moving forward, help other people  

the moment your stop giving, you stop growing  

this whole thing is about helping other people 

serve somebody

I remember the speaker talking about how to make it through a valley and the first point was to stay active by helping others.
   
No matter what our circumstances are, there is never a reason to stop giving out of ourselves, to stop loving, or stop caring. However, helping other people when we are struggling through a valley is probably the last thing we think of to do. This idea can be so abstract because we live in a world with a mentality that focuses on “what can help me, who can help me, me, me”. This is especially true when things in life start to get tough: the very notion of helping other people kind-of vanishes, we go into survival mode and we begin to only think about ourselves and our situation. Believe me when I say that I am speaking this probably more to myself than anyone else. I was challenged at the conference, and now as I read through my notes again I am challenged once more, probably even more so than before. 

When you don’t want to help someone … help lots of people

“Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.” Philippians 2:4


to be continued. . .