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There is a saying, “You are either walking in a valley, walking out of a valley, or walking towards a valley.” The valley of course represents difficult times in life. Now I believe that all things happen for a reason and a purpose.

As a follower of Jesus, the challenge comes with how we face these valleys. Our example of course is the Lord and how He faced His greatest challenge with that being the cross. We must understand that for Jesus the cross represented so much more than just physical pain. For the first time in all eternity, the triune God would be severed because of our sin. The Bible tells us that Jesus didn’t just take our sin, but He became sin, and for us to receive eternal life that sin had to be dealt with once and for all. This remedy came in the form of putting sin to death. Jesus becoming our sin had to die.

I can’t imagine what our Lord was feeling as He knelt in the Garden of Gethsemane and prayed to the Father that if it was possible the cup of this suffering be taken from Him. Isn’t that our prayer when we face horrible circumstances in our lives? No one wants to suffer, yet here we are, living in a world that has its fair share of suffering.

The question for me is how will I walk through this valley of suffering and difficulty. I try to be brave. I try to always look for the purpose and the good that can come from hardship, but that is not always easy, nor am I always successful at doing that.

I then go to how the Lord dealt with the dark time that laid before Him and I see these words in Luke 22:42, “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.” What I find refreshing is that even though Jesus knew what the outcome was going to be, that He would rise from the grave, that He would sit at the right hand of the Father, and that He would be successful in redeeming mankind, He still asked if there could be another way.

We all face trials and tribulations in this world. We probably all pray that the Father would take this pain from us, even when we know that the outcome will be good. For me, the challenge comes when the Father says no. There is no other way, and this is the valley in which I must walk. Am I able to pray “yet, not my will, but Yours?” I pray that I can. I pray that we all can come off our knees and be ready to face what the Lord has in store for us in a way that brings glory and honor to Him. You and I must always remember that our sole purpose is to bring glory to our God. We must be determined that no matter what, we face those hard times with a spiritual bravery that can only come from a Spirit-filled follower of the One True King and we’re able to say, “Not my will, but Yours Father.