Any time throughout the past ten or so years, when I would look back over the course of my life, all I could see were struggles I was faced with, and trying times. I can name off trial after trial that I have endured.

I know that despite what we walk through, God is still good. I also know that He uses the difficult times in our lives to make us stronger and help us grow. However, as I have gotten used to experiencing hard situations, I have started to believe that God is only a God of the valleys. My perspective has been that good things only come from enduring tough times, God only gives us tough love, and we have to spend our whole lives walking through struggle after struggle, because it is the only way we can grow, and that is the only way life goes.

It even came to a point where I was afraid to feel happy and excited about anything, because I thought I wasn’t allowed. I was afraid to embrace happiness because I thought it would just be snatched away from me.

Recently, God has had me in an amazing season of growth. During this season, He has been speaking a lot to me. One thing in particular He has said is, “I am kind and gentle. I want to bless you and poor My favour on you, just because. I want to give you good gifts. I want you to be happy, and see that My plan isn’t always the hard way, sometimes it is simple and easy.” 

At first this was extremely hard for me to swallow.

“Really, God? You just want to give me good things? For no reason? But I didn’t do anything to work for them or deserve them. This is too good to be true.”

But God persisted.

He continued to speak this over me, and over time, He has been speaking it louder and louder.

Until finally, He brought me to a point of being vulnerable enough with Him to trust what He was saying, and trust that He only had good intentions behind it.

I have been able to get to a point of more fully embracing God’s kindness and beautiful blessings, and at the same time learning so much more about His grace. I am so beyond amazed and thankful for it.

The gifts God gives us, and blessings He pours out over us, do not come because we have done anything to deserve them on our own; God has made us worthy of these things only through His work on the cross, and exclusively by His grace and mercy.

There are no words that would do justice to explain how wonderful and amazing God is.

Something else God has been teaching me is that He is the same God when we are on the mountain, as He is when we are in the valley. He is steadfast, and always remains faithful. He is the same every single day, and in every season.

Just because we walk through difficult times does not mean God is angry and spiteful toward us, and just because we walk through exciting and plentiful times does not mean we have earned His goodness and grace.

“I have done nothing to make God love me, and I can do nothing to make Him stop.”

God is God.
Kind, unconditionally loving, forgiving, gracious, merciful, disciplinary, Holy, jealous, and beyond our understanding.

He does not have two personalities that He interchanges and chooses to show at different times.
He is all of these things, all at once, all of the time.

At all times, and in all things, God only has our best interest at heart.
He is a safe place. He is someone we can trust in all ways, with all things. He will never fail us, or turn His back on us.

So, we do not have to fear the valleys, nor do we have to be skeptical of the mountains.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iDuZv_5MQk