Winepresses and Valleys

Have you ever been in the Napa Valley in California? It is truly beautiful place, especially in the fall! There are beautiful grape vines and rolling hills and rugged hills, and neat old historic buildings, and SO much character. I'm guessing right about now would be a wonderful time for a trip there. Maybe I'm missing the beginnings of fall. Maybe I'm simply homesick.


God has ever so gently been reminding me of a few things. If you like to read Oswald Chambers, then maybe you are on this journey with me, in your own way.


Here are a few of his quotes this week... "Grapes become wine only when they have been squeezed."


"I wonder what finger and thumb God has been using to squeeze you? Have you been as hard as a marble and escaped? If you are not ripe yet, and if God had squeezed you anyway, the wine produced would have been remarkably bitter. To be a holy person means that the elements of our natural life experience the very presence of God as they are providentially broken in His service."


"We are not made for the mountains, for sunrises, or for the other beautiful attractions in life— those are simply intended to be moments of inspiration. We are made for the valley and the ordinary things of life, and that is where we have to prove our stamina and strength. Yet our spiritual selfishness always wants repeated moments on the mountain."


"The height of the mountaintop is measured by the dismal drudgery of the valley, but it is in the valley that we have to live for the glory of God. We see His glory on the mountain, but we never live for His glory there. It is in the place of humiliation that we find our true worth to God— that is where our faithfulness is revealed. "

I do want to live my life up on the mountaintop. I don't want to come down into the valley to get squeezed. I don't like it. I don't like that my heart aches for people not here. I don't like that the enemy tries to distract me by making me long for places and people I can't be with right now.

The other day, as God so regularly does to me, pointed out a scripture in Isaiah 65:17 "...the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind." I am no theologian, but the way God comforted me with that verse this week was to help me understand that the homesickness I feel here in Manila will never be experienced in my eternal home, Heaven. When I finally get there, there will be no mourning for that which I have given up to be where God has called me.

I know that those things are experienced in a multitude of ways. Whatever the transition, there is always the euphoria of the mountain, and then the duldrum of the valley. Saying "yes" to God seems to put us up on the mountain. Living it out in the valley of Manila is where the reality begins. We are there. But God has promised to always be with us. As strange as this may sound, there is comfort in the fact that God doesn't expect me to live on the mountain. He does expect me to live in the valley. I have many times in my life felt frustration at not being on the mountain top, and I'm learning that not only is it ok, but Jesus didn't let his disciples build shelters on the mountain top. He made them go down into the valley.

How is God squeezing you? Are you on the mountain or in the valley?

Please keep us in your prayers as we march through the challenging times and tears of homesickness and culture shock.

We love you and miss you!