Last week we discussed how God’s presence softens life’s hardest hits https://infaith.org/stories/blog/lord-your-side.
The question that remains however is “why?”
Why do we all have to walk through the valley of the shadow of death?
The answer is found in Genesis 3:22, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil.”
In the Garden of Eden, humans insisted on having the knowledge of good and evil. One of the ways humans know evil is by walking through the valley of the shadow of death. It is there that we see things that cannot be unseen, and we hear things that are hurtful and heartbreaking.
In Genesis 2:18 God warns Adam that if he eats from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he will surely die. One of the most overlooked implications of this verse is that we will know evil. When our first parents chose to disobey God they also chose (and chose for us) to know evil. They willingly decided to encounter and experience things they could neither comprehend nor manage. Today, when the specter of evil lurks in the shadows of life it is the direct result of humankind’s desire to sit on God’s throne. God’s amazing and fatherly love, however, is patient and kind and keeps no record of a believer’s wrongs. God himself takes us by the hand and we can say with confidence: the words of Psalm 23: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff they comfort me.”
Someday, you’ll even understand even the gravest evil. 1 Corinthians 13:12: “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known."
This reminds us of the second verse of the great hymn “Be Still My Soul.”
Be still, my soul: thy God doth undertake
To guide the future, as He has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still know
His voice who ruled them while He dwelt below.
Someday our faithful Lord will soon make everything clear. In the meantime, we walk through the valley holding firm to our father’s hand.