Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; in whose heart are the ways of them. Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well: the rain also filleth the pools. Psalm 84:5-6.
    Phillips Brooks, the famous New England preacher, once said to his congregation, "In every pew, there sits a person with a broken heart." After having been a preacher for more than 50 years, I believe Phillip Brooks was exactly right. In every pew, there does sit a person with a broken heart.
    Those broken hearts come in assorted sizes and odd shapes. Sometimes, they arrive with dramatic flair as some tragedy overtakes you quickly and without warning. At other times, they are like the gentle breeze of morning as a phone calls says it’s cancer, your husband has left, your boy is in jail, your daughter is expecting a child out of wedlock. How those heartaches arrive really doesn’t matter. The fact is that they do arrive, don’t they? Behind smiling faces, some of you have a broken heart.
    I want us to look at what the psalmist said about those times of trouble and heartache that come to all of us. 
    Heartaches are unavoidable. There is no way to get around them. Sometimes, we think that, if we live good and pray and read the Bible and do what is right, God will somehow spare us from heartaches and troubles, but the truth of the matter is that is not the truth of the matter. The truth is that we have problems and heartaches and troubles and afflictions, and everybody has those. They are unavoidable. As a matter of fact, the only way that you could ever get through this life without having troubles is if you could figure out a way to be born without being born of a woman, for the Bible says he that is born of a woman is of few days and full of trouble. So, there is no way that you can get through this life without having troubles. You’re going to have a broken heart somewhere along the pathway of life. They’re unavoidable.
    Heartaches are unselective. They come to the good and the bad, the high and the low, the rich and the poor, the old and the young, the black and the white. They come to all people. One of the fallacies you see quite often today, if you watch a lot of Christian television, is that God’s people are somehow spared from trouble. A lot of people believe that sick people are bad people and healthy people are good folks. But let me tell you something. Troubles come to the good, to the bad, to the child of God and to the unsaved person. It doesn’t matter who you are. If you are in a human body, you’re going to have troubles, because they are unselective. They come to the good and bad and to the rich and the poor.
    Heartaches are generally unexplainable. You don’t know why they’re coming. You don’t understand why they’re happening. And they don’t make any sense. There is not one person who has not been confronted with something in your life or the life of one dear to you, and you looked at it and you said, "I don’t understand it. I don’t understand why that happened."
    I had a precious friend. He and his wife could not have children. They had prayed for so long that God would give them a child. Finally, after a number of years of barrenness, they decided to adopt a child. They adopted a beautiful little girl. She was so gorgeous. She was like a doll picture in a magazine. She was the apple of their eye. One day, while carrying one of her friends’ children to school, she put her little girl in the car with her, ran into a car and the little girl was killed. How do you explain that? How do you sit down and make logical sense out of that? You don’t. That’s why the apostle Paul said that His ways are past finding out. There are times when you don’t know why something happened to you, and all you know is, "God, I don’t understand, but I choose to stand when I don’t understand."
    What can you learn when you’re going through troubles, heartaches, and sorrow?
    I want to give you three principles that will help you hang onto your life when you’re in troubles. 
    You need to remember that trouble is always tempered by time. Did you notice what the psalmist said in that passage of scripture? He did not say, Blessed is the man who is in the valley of Baca. But he said rather, Blessed is the man who is passing through the valley of Baca. That man knew that he was in a valley, but he had enough spiritual perception to know that he was passing through that valley and that it was not going to last forever. 
    We do well to remember that weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. You’re not going to be in trouble all of your life. 
    We’re passing through. We’re pilgrims on our way to someplace else. We’re not going to be in trouble all of our lives. There is a day coming when trouble is going to pass. You need to remember that. You need to remember that you’re passing through. 
    So many of us have a ‘here and now’ mentality. Most of the songs we sing have a ‘here and now’ mentality. When I was growing up, we used to sing those old songs: "In the Sweet By and By", "What a Day That Will Be", "When We All Get to Heaven", "On Jordan’s Stormy Banks I Stand." Those songs were about the hereafter. Have you noticed that the songs we sing about now have a ‘here and now’ note about them? It’s as if we think we’re here for the duration. You are just passing through. You’re not going to be here very long. We would do well to remember that we’re just pilgrims passing through. 
    I had that illustrated to me some time ago. I was in a revival meeting, and they put me in a real ‘swanky’ place, real ‘upscale’ hotel. I went to bed that night. When I woke up the next morning, and opened my eyes, there was a big roach bug crawling across the top of the ceiling. As I looked at that roach bug crawling across the ceiling, I thought, "I wonder where all he has been during the night." I got up and went over to sit in the chair. Somebody had dropped a cigarette and burned a hole in the chair. I thought, "I’ve hit the ‘big’ time. I’m living in an infested room with a hole burned in the chair." But there was one thing I did not do. I did not call the exterminator and say, "Would you come over here and spray for these roaches?" I did not call the upholstery guy and say, "Would you come over here and fix this broken-down chair?" I did not do that. Do you know why? Because I was just passing through. Let somebody else worry about the roach bugs and the broken chair. I’m just a pilgrim passing through. I’m trying to get men, women, boys, and girls ready to meet Jesus and go to heaven when they die. We’re passing through. We’re pilgrims down here for just a little while. So, we need to remember that trouble is tempered with time. 
    Not only is trouble tempered by time, but processes must never be mistaken for purposes. One of the problems we have in our Christian perspective is that we have good vision in a couple of places. We have good backward vision. It is very easy to see what God has done. Every one of us can look back on our lives, and we’ve got 20/20 vision. We can see what God has done. We have pretty good vision looking forward, because we have the Bible to tell us what that is going to be like. So, we know what is going to happen, because the Bible has told us what is going to happen. We see what God has done, and we have reasonable hope of what God will do. Our vision is 20/20 in those ways. But the place we have real problems is seeing what God is doing. What God is doing is sometimes very hard to understand, because you don’t see the full process of it. It is unseen. You don’t know what God is doing.
    I was in a meeting some time ago. I saw a lady sitting in the building that night when I got up to preach. She was a very unhappy looking woman. She seemed to be rather angry about something. I didn’t think that she was mad at me, but she was very angry looking. She was sitting out there with her arms crossed with a real scowl on her face. I thought, "That’s an angry looking woman. I sure would hate to be married to a woman like that." I just imagined all kinds of things about her. Every night, she was there. She never missed a night. I just imagined all kinds of things about her. What a mean looking woman. The last night of the meeting, the pastor said, "I want brother Junior to stand out here at the front. Maybe you would like to come say a word of encouragement to him." I was standing there, shaking hands with these people, and enjoying it so much until I looked at the back of the line. There stood that angry looking woman. It took the joy out of everything everybody was saying. Finally, after everybody left but me and this angry looking woman, she walked up to me and took my hand. I thought, "She’s really going to tell me off." But it did not happen like that. All of a sudden, I saw big tears well up in her eyes, and I watched them roll off her cheeks. With a little trembling voice, she said, "Brother Junior, I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed your sermons this week. I’ve been here every night." She said, "Two weeks ago, I buried the best husband any woman could ever have. I’ve been so lonely. I’ve been so sad. I said I can’t go to church tonight. But I’ve come every night, preacher, and I just had to tell you how much your messages have blessed me." And I thought, "Lord, I didn’t see what you were doing." Friends, sometimes you just get a partial view of what God is doing. You get a little glimpse of it. But you don’t know the full story. And that’s why the process must never be mistaken for the purpose.
    You see, that man knew he was in that valley, but he had enough spiritual perception to know that was not the purpose of God. That was the process that God had him in to get him to that purpose. And you don’t always see the processes of God. They are unseen.
    The second thing I have learned about processes is that they are generally unhurried. You can’t hurry them up. Precious ladies who have had babies, I wonder how many times, while they were carrying that little baby in their body, did they say to themselves, "I wish this pregnancy could last 18 months." But how many times did they probably say, "Lord, hurry up. I wish you would hurry. Make it fast, Lord." Sometimes, we have a disposition to try to hurry up the processes of God, but you don’t hurry up God’s processes. That’s why the Bible says, Be not weary in well doing, for in due season, you shall reap if you faint not. And due seasons never come until they are due. You can’t hurry them up. 
    Some years ago, my neighbor gave my wife a big, flowering plant. It really was unattractive. We picked out a place in the back yard to put this plant. Carole loved it. I hated the thing. She would pinch off the dead growth. She would water it and fertilize it and turn it around to the sun. She pampered that plant for four or five months. Every time I would ride by it in the summer on my riding lawn mower, I would feel this little urge welling up in my heart. "I believe I’ll grind this thing down into the ground."
    I came home several weeks later and Carol was ecstatic. She was just beside herself. "Honey, the flower bloomed." Do you know what I discovered about that flower? It blooms one time a year. The intriguing thing about it is it blooms one night one time a year. Can you imagine getting a flashlight and going out every night of your life, looking for a bloom? One night, one time a year. What if I didn’t know that? What if I didn’t know that flower had one season, one night, one time a year, and I got mad at it? "You old sorry, backslidden reprobate of a plant! Why don’t you bloom? Bloom, bloom, bloom, bloom, bloom." You can do whatever you want to do, but you cannot make that flower bloom until the season God put it in. You can’t hurry up the processes of God. God is in no hurry. You just have to learn to put your life in neutral and say, "God, I don’t particularly understand what is going on, but I know that I have got to wait on you and be patient, and let God bring His season to pass." Processes are unseen, and they are unhurried.
    The third thing, and this is the very intriguing thing about it, they are generally unenjoyable. You don’t enjoy processes. You enjoy purposes. Back to that analogy of children, you don’t enjoy carrying that baby and having that baby. That is a process that is not very enjoyable. But you do enjoy the purpose of that process that brought you that little baby, as you held him or her in your arms. We need to learn that the processes of God sometimes may not be enjoyable, but the purpose that He has for us is always so sweet and so precious. Processes are unseen, unhurried, and unenjoyable. 
    I had that illustrated rather dramatically several years ago. My wife, Carole, has had some rather severe problems with her heart. She had, to begin with, atrial fibrillation. Her problem was that her heart got out of rhythm, and they could not get it regulated so that it was beating properly. The doctor said, "Mrs. Hill, this probably won’t kill you, per se, but it subjects you to the possibility of a stroke. We need to do something about this. We’ve tried all of the medicines we know. We don’t know anything else to do but to do what we call an ablation. Simply put, we’ll go in and we’ll take a laser, and we will destroy those heart nodes that make your heart beat. Those little sensors that tell your heart when to beat, we’ll just destroy them. Then, we will hook you up to a pacemaker that will tell your heart when to beat." Many people have a pacemaker, but, to have an ablation and then be hooked up to a pacemaker is a rather serious thing. And when Carole heard that, she said, "Honey, that means I’m going to be living on a battery." I said, ‘That’s right. You’re going to live on a battery. But, Carole, here is the good part. The battery will always be in God’s hands.’ And so we made the arrangements to have that surgery done. It was going to be done on a Wednesday morning. I was in Albuquerque, New Mexico Tuesday, preaching at the New Mexico State Evangelism Conference. I had told Carole, "Honey, I’ll cancel all of my meetings. I’ll tell the pastors I can’t come. I’ll be here with you, and I won’t even preach for weeks." My wife would have none of that. She said, "No, you said you would help those preachers. You honor all of those commitments. All I ask is that you be here Wednesday morning with me when I go in surgery." I preached Tuesday morning. I got on the airplane, flying from Albuquerque to Atlanta and from Atlanta to Huntsville. I wanted to be there Tuesday night so that I could be with Carole Wednesday morning. I got on the plane in Albuquerque. I flew into the Atlanta area. I looked at my watch. I had an hour’s time to make that connecting flight to Huntsville. I thought, "Lord, thank you for letting me get here on time. I’m going to make that connection to Huntsville. I’ll be there for Carole’s surgery." But, when we got into Atlanta, we began that inevitable process of circling the airport. I was getting anxious. I looked at my watch, and I said, "Lord, if that plane doesn’t land pretty soon, I’m not going to make that connecting flight. Lord, please let this plane land." In a few seconds, the pilot came on the air and said, "Folks, to apprise you of our problem, we’ve been circling the airport for so long, we’re about to run out of gas." I said, ‘Lord, all I asked is that you let me get home on time. Lord, I’m not even going to make this connection to Huntsville. I don’t understand that.’ I was sitting there, whining and complaining. In a minute, the pilot came on and said, "Folks, just to update you on our problem, the tower has studied our problem. They know that we’re low on gas. They have decided that it would be best to divert this plane to Huntsville, Alabama." I saw guys cussing and throwing newspapers. I was sitting there grinning, like a hog eating bumblebees. I thought, ‘God, you’ve shut down the whole Delta network to get one preacher home on time.’ Did I enjoy that? Oh, no. Processes are not enjoyable. But did I enjoy the purpose? Oh, yes.
    You may be in a deep, dark valley. You may be in a heartache that is rendering you almost inoperable. You think, "God, my heart is broken so I can’t bear it." Just remember this: that is not God’s purpose for it. That may be a little process that God has allowed you to go through, that He can ultimately get you to the purpose, and you can look back and say, "God, it wasn’t enjoyable, but thank you that I got to the purpose."
    Trouble is tempered by time. Processes must not be mistaken for purposes. And opportunity always arises with every oppression. That psalmist found himself in a valley. And he didn’t know what to do. So, he did an interesting thing. Did you notice what the Bible says? Blessed is the man who passing through the valley of Baca makes it a well. The rain also filleth the pools. 
    I want you to get this picture in your mind. Here is a man walking through a dry, parched valley. There is no water anywhere to be seen. He does something very interesting. He falls down on his knees, and, apparently, probably with his hands, he begins to dig out a hole. The Bible calls it a well. With his hands or some instrument he might have had, he digs a hole in the ground, a hole in the dry ground. They tell us that, in those eastern countries, in the morning, sometimes the dew was so heavy that it would actually fill crevices and cracks and holes. And the Bible says, He maketh it a well. The rains, the dew perhaps he is talking about, filleth the pools. When that man got in that deep, dark, dry valley, rather than whine and complain, he just got down on his knees and dug him a hole and waited for the morning to come, when God would give the refreshing dew. 
    Rather than fret and cry and complain, rather than criticize God and bemoan your fate, when you get in trouble and heartache, why don’t you just dig a well? "God, I don’t understand this. I don’t know why I’m here. It’s not enjoyable, and I can’t hurry it up, but, God, I’m digging a well. And would you, in your sovereignty, send some refreshing rain to fill it?" If you will do that, God is as good as His word, that He will refresh your parched soul somewhere along the way. 
    Carole and I have been married 51 years. When we were celebrating our 40th anniversary, I wanted to do something really special for Carole. I thought, "We’ve been married 40 years. I would like to get her something she will never forget on this anniversary." I went to a jewelry store. I said, "Mr. Smith, Carole and I are celebrating 40 years of marriage. I’d like to buy her something really special. Could you make her a ring, a necklace, or broach or something?" He said, ‘Brother Junior, give me a couple of days and come back, and I’ll see what I can do.’ I came back a few days later, and he had taken a piece of gold setting and built a little base right around the top of that gold ring, and he had placed 40 little diamonds right around the top of that base. Right in the middle, he had taken a beautiful red ruby and put it right in the middle of those 40 diamonds. It was beautiful. I said, "Mr. Smith, that is perfect." I gave it to Carole, 40 little diamonds with a red ruby. She treasured that. She was so proud of it. 
    I was down at Jacksonville at the pastors’ school several weeks later. I had been to the conference that morning. That afternoon, the phone was ringing in my room. It was Carole. "Honey, I lost the ruby. I was sitting in church this morning, showing my ring to the ladies. When I got back out in the car after the service, I put my hand up on the steering wheel, and the ruby was gone. I lost the ruby." I said, ‘Honey, it’s just a piece of glass. We’ll get another one.’ "Oh, but that is a special ring. Honey, I lost the ruby." ‘Carole, don’t worry about it. It’s all right. Before you go to bed tonight, just ask the Lord to calm you down and touch your heart. Don’t be worried about it.’ That night, when Carole sat down on her bed, laying on the stand beside of her was her Bible. And she prayed this prayer. She said, "God, we have always asked you to give us some word out of the Bible. And I’m going to reach over and pick this Bible up, and wherever it happens to open, I’m going to believe that there is a verse there for me." That’s not a good way to pray, but sometimes God honors desperation. "Lord, whatever that verse says, I’m going to trust you." So, she reached over, picked up her Bible, and just let it open up. And when she looked in the pages of the Bible, there, in the crevice of her Bible, was the ruby. Apparently, while she had shown it to her friends, the clasp had come loose, and, unknown to her, it had fallen into the pages of her Bible. And she had closed it up. And when she opened the Bible, there was the ruby.
    I’m not telling you that you’re going to find everything you lose. I’m not telling you that it is always going to be ‘hallelujah.’ But I’m telling you this. If you will dig a well in the valley, God will see fit to fill it with water. And there is always a ruby of some kind in the valley. 
    Are you in a valley? Do you have a sick body? A family problem? A wayward child? Financial adversity? Dig a well and let God fill it with His water.



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