Journey through the valley of the shadow of death

I was asked for an in flight blog post haha so here you go my lovelies…

Recently, I was thinking about how I do not ever want to be somewhere where God isn’t. That is not an easy decision to make over ones life because I am not sure if you have noticed but God does not always lead us straight to the mountain top when we walk with Him. 

I used to ask God a lot of questions, why me? Why now? Why this or that. I have come to realise that it is not my job to question God at every turn. There are things that I may never understand in this lifetime and it will only cause me to live in frustration if I try to understand it all. It is however, beneficial to me if I can just learn to trust God along the way. To trust His leading. 

If we look at the story of Jesus’ baptism, He was led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit right after His baptism. Likewise, as we follow God sometimes He will lead us into the wilderness. He will lead us into the valley of the shadow of death. In fact I thought I was in the valley of the shadow of death during my flight when I got struck with a bout of food poisoning and my temperature sky rocketed and I was dizzy and was struggling to stay awake and stay focused and I was nauseous all at the same time. It didn’t feel great at all. I honestly thought I was not going to make it and I said, “Not like this Jesus!” lol.

Then on my stop over in Bangkok, my ears where killing me as we were descending, I actually asked God, “Why me?” Soon as I asked that question, a thought entered my mind, “Why not me?” I would not wish any of that pain on anyone at all. But, I had a hidden advantage, I have a secret weapon, the Holy Spirit. In Bangkok I thought it was the worst thing that could happen descending for 30 minutes with ears that felt like they were on the verge of exploding. But praise God that happened in Bangkok because when we were descending to land in Dubai, there was fog and our flight had to circle around for about an hour 20 minutes. So in total I would have been in the excruciating ear popping pain for close to 2 hours had it not happened in Bangkok. God is good. 

We do not always understand everything but we have a mandate to always trust. Not blindly trust for we have a Bible full of evidence of God’s faithfulness. So, we trust based on the history of our God. We trust based on His story that is elaborately expressed in the Bible. We trust because we know we have a God who loves us completely. Even when we do not understand we trust. God is good, all the time. Not only when things are going well. Not only when I have a great seat (which I did- awesome seat). He is also good when I am hurled over in the bathroom throwing up thinking, how am I going to make it home I still have an odd 24 hours of flying. He is also good when my ears feel like they are going to explode. Because though it may have felt like I was walking through the valley of the shadow of death (yes I thought i was dying!) God was with me the whole time. Reminding me that no weapon formed against me will prevail. Reminding me that I am ok and I will be ok. I had such a quick recovery from the food poisoning (thanks to a lot of throwing up) lol but God was with me the whole time. 

In every situation our reaction to the situation will largely affect how we experience it and how long it takes for us to come out of it. With the ear popping experience, after I thought, “Why not me”, I focused my attention on asking God to help me through it and He did. It felt like time went exponentially faster than usual. To me anyway. I don’t know what God did but 30 minutes of descending and expected ear popping pain was reduced to what felt like initial 5 minutes of excruciating pain then 5minutes of me focusing on God who was holding my hand without letting go and it was over before I knew it. 

Now I can look at all that and think, argh terrible flying experience or I can say, thank God for His mercy that helped me make it through the valley of the shadow of death. God is always with me and He is also with you. 

Whatever your valley of the shadow of death may be today, a bill, a headache, something- remind yourself that God is with you (see Psalms23:4). If He allows for it to happen, He has you covered, you will make it through just fine. When I explained to the gentleman I am sitting next to on my connecting flight that I nearly died during the first 9 hours of my first flight, he laughed because it seemed like a wild exaggeration because I look alive and well and as fit as a bull, if I may say so myself 😉 

If we keep trusting God and believing He hears our prayers, He has a way of giving us a quick turn around that no-one will believe. He is God. He is good and He loves you and I. 

Anyway that is an update from somewhere in Africa on my connecting flight. I will be in Harare, Zimbabwe in about 8 hours 🙂 8 more happy flying hours. Hello movie time! P.s. they have all the latest movies!!! Not bad Emirates, not bad. Now let’s improve on the food shall we- girl gotta eat! 

I will catch up with you guys when I land 🙂