I love the mountains! In fact, if I had my druthers, I\u2019d live in the mountains, near a lake where I could go fishing whenever I wanted.\u00a0 I just haven\u2019t figured out how I can do that and still live near enough to Angels Stadium to catch a game whenever I wanted!<\/p>\n
Mountains are holy places.\u00a0 It says so in the Bible! And we talk about \u201cmountain top experiences\u201d as holy experiences when we get close to God.\u00a0 So mountains are good.\u00a0 I like mountains! But sometimes, we walk in the valley.<\/p>\n
Psalm 23 speaks of the \u201cvalley of the shadow of death.\u201d\u00a0 Valleys are\u00a0places where life can get hard.\u00a0 Ironically, we live and\/or worship in\u00a0Fountain Valley!\u00a0 And yet perhaps that isn\u2019t so ironic\u00a0 after all.\u00a0 Because mountains may be beautiful and refreshing, but it is in the valleys where the fruit grows.<\/p>\n
Life can be hard.\u00a0 Life can be burdensome.\u00a0 Sometimes we are so weighed down by the challenges of life that it feels like we are living in a desert wasteland, spiritually.\u00a0 In those times we often do not \u201cfeel\u201d like praying, worshipping, or even thinking about God.\u00a0 The enemy loves to taunt us during those times and tell us that \u201cGod doesn\u2019t really love us\u201d or even that \u201cGod doesn\u2019t really exist\u201d!\u00a0 The ancients called it a \u201cdark night of the soul\u201d or a time of \u201cwandering in the desert.\u201d\u00a0 We all go through it.\u00a0 Some of us many times.<\/p>\n
But it is in those times of walking through the valley that we can grow closer to God and deeper in our faith.\u00a0 Instead of giving in to the temptation of abandoning God and our spiritual disciplines, we need to continue struggling through, seeking God even when we don\u2019t want to.\u00a0 Renouncing the tempter and his temptations, and relying on our faith (not our sight) to redouble our efforts to seek God\u2019s face.\u00a0 Because when we do so, we will find that sweet, mountain top refreshment again.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart\u201d (Jeremiah 29:13).<\/p>\n
Be refreshed,
\nPastor Glen<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I love the mountains! In fact, if I had my druthers, I\u2019d live in the mountains, near a lake where I could go fishing whenever I wanted.\u00a0 I just haven\u2019t figured out how I can do that and still live near enough to Angels Stadium to catch a game whenever I wanted! Mountains are holy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":832,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[59,102],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church-news","category-pastoral"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1252"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1254,"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1252\/revisions\/1254"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}