European author Franz Kafka pictures a man whose life is suddenly invaded by government officials. He finds himself facing problems for which he is not responsible. Repeatedly, he goes to the authorities to try and resolve the issue. He asks, “Why all these problems? What is the charge?” But he can find neither satisfaction nor explanation. The story closes with this troubled, harassed man looking towards the government building. Suddenly he sees a figure leaning out from an upper story with arms outstretched. He wonders, “Is that God? Has he a message of truth, of love, of comfort? What does it mean?” And the story ends.
Kafka books have great appeal to many because they picture the enigmatic nature of existence—as some would say, “the perdition of existence.” Or, in the words of many commentators describing each year of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, as an annus horribilis on a global scale. Like all Kafka’s stories that picture life as overwhelmingly difficult, we are in a century when it seems that a whole civilization is confronted with unsolvable problems. We are in the Valley of Achor!
Achor was that inhospitable valley through which the tribes of Israel entered the promised land at the end of their forty years journeying in the wilderness. If ever there was a valley to strike terror into the heart and envelope the spirit with gloom, it was this valley, a place of precipitous cliffs and overhanging crags into which the gladdening sunshine rarely entered. The vultures made their nests there, and their harsh cries would echo through the deep ravines, and in the tangle of the trees and thickets all manner of evil and unclean things lurked. To the Israelites, the world seemed to end in this abomination of desolation, and so they called the valley Achor, meaning “troubling.”
Centuries passed. Hosea came upon the scene and predicted disasters that would come upon the nation. He declared that the people would have to go through the Valley of Trouble. Then comes the assurance, “And there I will give her her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope” (Hos 2:15, ESV). Just as their forefathers found in their journey to the promised land, so they, at this latter day, would find their experience of sorrow leading them to something bigger and better than they had ever known before.
There are four ways our Achor valleys can do the same for us.
Firstly, the Valley of Trouble can prove to be a place of new beginnings. Indeed, it is a veritable door of hope in which our valleys of trouble become doorways opening to new and better things. For as Arthur Bryant observes, “time is the friend of all who are in any way in adversity, for its mazy road winds in and out of the shadows sooner or later into sunshine, and when one is at its darkest point one can be certain that presently it will grow brighter.”1
TIME IS THE FRIEND OF ALL WHO ARE IN ANY WAY IN ADVERSITY, FOR ITS MAZY ROAD WINDS IN AND OUT OF THE SHADOWS SOONER OR LATER INTO SUNSHINE, AND WHEN ONE IS AT ITS DARKEST POINT ONE CAN BE CERTAIN THAT PRESENTLY IT WILL GROW BRIGHTER.
So it was with Giuseppe Verdi, who in 1825 failed the entrance examination to the Conservatory of Music in Milan. This disappointment was the beginning of a journey into the Valley of Trouble for Verdi. He lost his wife and his two children within two years of each other, and, grief stricken, resolved never to compose again. It was then in the valley he was commissioned to write Nabucco, “Nebuchadnezzar.” Verdi became deeply absorbed as he read about the sorrows of the Hebrew captives. He poured out his own sorrow and grief into the music. With heart aflame, he identified with his own people who were oppressed by the AustrianHungarian Empire. The opera’s theme of national independence inspired him, and its great chorus “Hebrew Slaves” became an anthem for the Italian Risorgimento movement for unification. Verdi went on to write an opera a year, to a total of twentyeight, as well as fourteen vocal and instrumental compositions. For Giuseppe Verdi, his Valley of Trouble became the door of a new beginning and hope. “Trials and obstacles,” writes Ellen G. White, “are the Lord’s . . . appointed conditions of success.”2
So it was also with the great pianist Robert Schumann. He lost a finger in an accident, which kept him from performing on the concert stage. Notwithstanding, he went on to write 268 compositions, ninety of which were piano music.
And then there was Ludwig van Beethoven, who transcended personal tragedy to write 398 compositions. From 1778 with his first public performance in Cologne to 1802 when he was depressed by hearing loss, he took lessons in organ and violin, studied briefly with Mozart and Haydn in Vienna, and among other works published the Moonlight Sonata. One of his biographers, Henry Thomas, wrote, “Beethoven’s deafness was no tragedy. The sounds of earth were stilled for him, that in the silence he might catch the harmonies of heaven.”3 Beethoven’s Valley of Trouble brought forth his most spiritual and exalted music.
Secondly, the Valley of Trouble can be a door of hope leading to self-examination. The Valley of Trouble provides an opportunity for reflection, to face the reality of what manner of persons we have become and what we are making of our lives. More importantly, ask the Lord to “search the heart and test the mind” (Jer 17:10, ESV), to “test and examine our ways” (Lam 3:40, ESV), and “to see whether you are in the faith” (2 Cor 13:5, ESV). If in the valley we learn anew what are life’s true values, its noblest ends, its abiding joys, then the Valley of Trouble becomes a door of change and hope.
Thirdly, the Valley of Trouble can be a door of hope if it awakens in us a realization that our human resources are unequal to meet the trouble in the valley. That trouble can knock us off the pedestal of our self-sufficiency and lead us into a renewed encounter with the One who is all-sufficient. “Before I was afflicted,” writes the psalmist, “I went astray, but now I keep your word” (Ps 119:67, ESV). Or, in the words of the Megiddo Message, “affliction is God’s shepherd dog to drive us back into the fold.”4 The Valley of Trouble emerges from the desert of our despair, and all our wisdom and power seem to be of no avail. If the Valley of Trouble is breaching the walls of our pride and breaking down our illusions of self-sufficiency, then it can become for us a door of hope.
IF THE VALLEY OF TROUBLE IS BREACHING THE WALLS OF OUR PRIDE AND BREAKING DOWN OUR ILLUSIONS OF SELFSUFFICIENCY, THEN IT CAN BECOME FOR US A DOOR OF HOPE.
Finally, the Valley of Trouble becomes a door of hope if it leads us to a life vitally connected with a loving Christ. Christianity is not a creed to be memorized, but a Person to be followed and a way of life to be adopted. However, such a life brings no immunity from difficulties; rather, it is to produce a character adequate to meet them when it comes. But if God is a mere abstraction, then what provisions can He offer us in a crisis when in our self-dependency we are independent from Him? However, when the Valley of Trouble comes, it awakens a need that makes God necessary. Only then can we taste and see that the “Lord is good” and that “His mercy endures forever,” and then, looking back on the Valley of Trouble, we will have found it to be the door of hope. So,
Lord, dismiss us with thy blessing, Hope and comfort from above; Let us each, thy peace possessing, Triumph in redeeming love.5
1 Arthur Bryant, “Adversity,” in The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations, ed. Frank Spencer Mead (Old Tappan, NJ: F. H. Revell, 1985), 1.
2 Ellen G. White, Ministry of Healing (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press, 1937), 471.
3 “Ludwig van Beethoven,” in Classical Music, ed. John Burrows (London: DK, 1939), 157.
4 “Affliction,” in Mead, The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations, 1.
5 “Hope,” in ibid., 233.
Rex D. Edwards, DMin, is a former vice president for religious studies at Griggs University.
