The valley or the mountain, it’s always the same God

The valley or the mountain, it’s always the same God

Local Commentary

Always walk with him holding your hand, because your grip might slip. I think sometimes, when everything is going good for people, we often just put God over to one side because it's not a big deal and we don't need him at that moment.

But when it seems that everything that can go wrong does, then we want to call on God to help us out of this mess (but with certain provisions, because even though down deep we know that this was most likely caused by us, because of some decision we made that was the wrong one). But that is just the nature of humans – to blame someone else simply because it's never our fault and it was because of a situation or a circumstance.

Have you ever had someone come to you because of some problem that they were having in their life and needed your help? I'm always in favor of helping someone that is truly in need, but right away they wanted to tell you how they wanted you to help them and then they would tell you how to go about it and how much you needed to help.

I'm thinking right now someone out there reading this is saying, boy, I sure have. The way I see this, you are the one that made some wrong decisions in your life, but with me making some right decisions in my life you want to tell me how you want me to help you.

So you can see why this logic just doesn't ring right for some reason. When we go through these trying times in life, we seem to forget that God has never changed at all and he has never hid from us, whether it was the valley of “sorrows and what am I going to do” or the mountain of “everything is great so stay out of my face.” So, if you are in that valley, then you must take care of first things first, admit to God that you got out ahead of him because you thought you knew best, but have now proved to yourself that you were wrong.

Now first and foremost, you must listen to God when he starts you down the road of doing the right thing for you. That feeling of doing it wrong on your own is probably going to turn out wrong. Now here is where I put the cold hard facts to you, because for this to work in your life you have got to trust in God to help you. When Satan gets involved in our lives, he is the great deceiver and destroyer.

We are supposed to thank God for all our blessings and the love that we get from our families and our loved ones, but it seems that we are thinking more about all those things in our life that we think is more important than God’s blessings, so let me encourage you to take a moment to truly thank God for what he has done for not only in your life but also for this blessed Country that you live in.

Satan comes along and all some of us can think about is a little partying and a little get-together with some great friends and catching up on some things and having a few drinks. The reality is that Satan has become so slick and deceiving he can make the ones without Christ do a lot of things that we know that they shouldn't, and he will make them think that parties, drugs and all sorts of things, like porn, are the greatest things going, and he makes you think that way because of your weakness. A lot of times, that's the real reason you don't “need” God, so in your mind God has gotten lost somewhere along the way.

I'm not saying that getting together with friends for a great meal somewhere is a bad thing. But above all, we all need to always be thankful to him for giving us the opportunity to walk through that door of forgiveness. And the bottom line is, if we don't walk through that door, then we have no excuse, because the door was opened freely with no requirements on your part other than accepting it simply because of how much he loved you.

Just remember that it is the asking and receiving that gets you to heaven – it always has been and always will be. May God pour out his richest blessings on all of you and yours and May God bless this great country of ours, even when it seems we as a nation are turning our back on him.

Bill McFerrin is a West Memphis man with some things to say and a certain way of saying them.

By Bill McFerrin