Peaks and Valleys

The Finding Emet radio program aims to help people understand and live the truth of the Bible from a Hebrew perspective. The program features the teaching ministry of Brother Daniel Rendleman and offers resources such as audio lessons, teaching articles, and a free online Bible search program. The main message is that life is full of ups and downs, and it's important to embrace both the good and the bad times. The speaker uses examples from history, including Abraham Lincoln's failures and successes, to illustrate this point. The goal is to find balance and make the most of every situation, ultimately striving for a life of abundance. Hello, and welcome to the Finding Emet radio program. Emet is the Hebrew word for truth. This program will help you understand and live the truth of the Bible from a Hebrew perspective. The Finding Emet radio program features the teaching ministry of Brother Daniel Rendleman of Emet Ministries. Prepare your heart to receive the Emet, the truth of the scriptures. More audio lessons and teaching articles are available at the www.emetministries.com website. Please visit our site to find all things spiritual, including a free online Bible search program, or submit your prayer requests. That's www.emetministries.com, or www.findemet.com. CD copies of this teaching are available for free by submitting a request at the website. Let's welcome our teacher, Daniel Rendleman, as he helps us find the Emet. When we read in the scriptures, read about Paul, or Moses, or Yeshua, or Yaakov, or James, all these different people in the Bible, when we read about them, we kind of envision their life better than it really was. We think of it as just perfect, with no problems. Do you ever think of Paul waking up with just a splinter, stumping his toe in the middle of the night because he hears a noise, he gets up? Probably not. We don't think of those things. But when we think of their lives, it's probably better than they are. And do the same thing with the founding fathers. When you think of the people that are on Mount Rushmore, their heads in stone. My wife says I have a head of stone, but their heads are in stone. These people must be very, they must have been great, they must have been wonderful leaders. Think for a minute about Abraham Lincoln. Don't we call him Honest Abe? He couldn't tell a lie? We think of these people on our dollars. We see them. Oh, there's Thomas Jefferson. He must have had a great life. This man ended up on our dollars. Yeah, they're dead presidents, but this must have been great. Think about Abraham Lincoln, what we think, he must have had a great life. But history shows us something very different. We think about people in the Bible, and we think they must have, things have gone well, and yeah, they might not have ended well. But we consider that. In 1831, Abraham Lincoln failed at a business venture that he was doing. Does that sound like a future president, a business failure? No, it don't. In 1832, a year later, he ran for legislator. Do you think he won? We think he won because, oh, rise to fame, no, he was defeated. He again failed a business in 1833. A year later, he ran for the legislator in the state of Illinois, and he won. But in 1835, his childhood sweetheart passed away, a sad event. The next year attached to that, he had a nervous breakdown. In 1838, he ran for Speaker of the House. Do you think he won? He didn't. He was defeated. The next year, he ran for re-election, and he was defeated. In 1843, he decided, you know what, I'm going to run for Congress. And he lost. In 1846, he was elected to Congress. That's a congressman, that's pretty good. But did you know that in 1848, as he ran for re-election, he was defeated. So he decided a couple years later, seven years later, I'm going to do it. I'm going to run for Senate. And he was defeated. Just one year later, he was on the ticket to be the Vice President of the United States. And he was defeated. And then in 1858, he said, you know what, I'm going to do it again. I'm not giving up. I'm going to run for Senate. And he was defeated. Four years after he was defeated for a vice presidential nod, he was on that ticket, in 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States, and we are a different country now because of that. Now, yes, it did end in tragedy. He did have a bad day at the theater. However, we can see from his history, and these are true recorded facts, that he had his ups, he had his downs. He's kind of just like us in that extent. That we all go through things. It's normal to be defeated sometimes. It's normal to win sometimes. It's not normal to win all the time. I'm sorry, whatever that prosperity teacher tells you. You cannot walk around with a smile on your face unless you've had plastic surgery. And nobody here wants to look like the Joker off of Batman. Remember that? 1989, that Joker movie with Jack Nicholson, big smile on his face. That just isn't right. Think for a minute about the heartbeat. You've seen these on what, EKGs? It's got a straight line, and then it kind of goes up a little bit, and down a little bit, and then it goes way up, and then down. Think about the heartbeat. The heartbeat shows us that life is full of ups and downs. When you look outside, you don't see just a flat plain. Most places in the world. What do you see? Peaks, and valleys, and bumps, and roads, and hills. But what happens if it does go straight? If your heartbeat does just go beep, and you're not going boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. It's beep. Is that a good day? That's a bad day. What happens when the ups and downs stop? You're dead. You're a goner. You're a goner! And yet, isn't that what we want sometimes? Oh, just go away. Go away. I said it last night. I just want to kill my children and tell Yahweh they died. Sometimes, sometimes we just feel like, I'm ready to go home. You ever been there before? All right, Yahweh, I'm ready to go home. I'm tired of life, I've been down in the dumps, I'm tired of up and down and all of this. But let me tell you, this is life because the alternative is death. The alternative is the flat line. So it's important that like a heartbeat, as we look outside the landscape, ups and downs is normal. So turn to your neighbor and say, you're normal. You are normal. Now shall not lie, don't forget that. You couldn't make yourself say it. You are normal, Jeremiah. Luther, we're praying for you. The problem is we don't think it's normal to have ups and downs because we see people, whether we see them at work or we see them at Walmart or we see them while we're out and about in the town, we see them at a worship service. And what do you do? You say, hey, how are you doing? Oh, I'm doing fine. And you are a liar. Aren't you lying? You say, oh, I'm just too blessed to be depressed. And you are dying inside. I mean, let's be honest here. It's time to see reality. Too many times we just say, I'm just doing wonderful. And in reality, you could just cry at any minute. You could just break like a porcelain doll if you got dropped the wrong way. But yet we tell everybody, we kind of wear of his facade, we wear of his face, we wear of his mask, and we act like everything's okay. And that actually stops us from realizing that life is hard. I mean, think about it, though. Who wants to be Eeyore? Remember that from Winnie the Pooh? Eeyore? Oh, I guess it's going to rain. I'm so sad. Everything's bad. Who wants to be Eeyore? Does anybody really want to be the Eeyore around town? No. Now I'll just tell you, just to be honest, my wife and I are polar opposites. But this is a good thing. You see, I'm the eternal optimist. The glass is always half full. She is the eternal pessimist. She calls it realist. But the glass is always half empty. But you know what you always showed me? That if we were the same, if we were the same, guess what? She wouldn't need me. And I wouldn't need her. But because we're different, we can balance each other out. And she's like a donkey I've got to pull aside sometimes. And I'm like a kite that she's got to grab and say, no, no, no, come on back. More like a dodo bird that she's got to pull back and say, no, no, no, don't do that. And yet the balance is in the middle. We've got to be real sometimes and realize that things aren't always grand, great, and glorious. Now, think about a roller coaster for a minute. Do you like to ride roller coasters? Okay. Roller coasters are kind of fun. And the truth is everyone has times of joy and sadness. So the question is, how do we make it through our day without letting go? Like on a roller coaster where you just throw up your hands and scream like you're ready to let go. How do we get through without complaining? How do we stay on top no matter what? Well, let's be honest again. Look at the life of Moses. Was it always great? There was a time when he had to realize he wasn't Pharaoh's son. I'd be pretty upset. There was a time that he had to realize that Pharaoh wasn't just going to let the Israelites go. What about the time going through the wilderness and everybody was trying just to turn back and he had to say no? Think about Paul's life, shipwrecks, and he got beat. All these things had occurred. Life is full of ups and downs, peaks and valleys. So for the next few minutes, we're going to share some concepts about making good and bad times work for you. How does that sound? That sound good? That sound good? So pay attention as we go through some of this. We're going to look at how to get out of a valley sooner, how to stay on a peak longer, how to have more peaks and fewer valleys. We're going to look at how to do what Yeshua said in John chapter 10, verse 10. Yeshua said, But I have come that you might have life, and life in abundance. Abundance. Not ignorance, not dullness, not headaches, not pain, not problems, but abundance. Now if you look at the apostles, you would think that they probably understood the abundant life, but do you know how they all died? In tragedy. They were all killed. They were all martyred. Do you call that abundant life? Don't sign me up for it. You know what I'm saying? Yet, we've got to realize that we all go through it, but know this. Know that it's not just that you're going through it, but how you feel inside and respond to it that's important. Betty, if the doctor tells you that you've responded to your medicine, and you're healed, that's good. Isn't that a good thing? But if the doctor says that you've reacted to your medicine, and you're growing a third eye, that's not good. That's not good. And yet what happens with life is many times we don't respond, we react. So something occurs, and we just react off the cuff to it, and then we wonder why things are bad the next day. So we've got to learn not to react, but to respond in the right way. And sometimes to do that, we need to step outside and look at the situation. That's one reason why Yahweh gave us Shabbat. Shabbat is a day to step outside of our normal life and say, Why is it this way? What am I going to do about it to change it? What is Yahweh leading me to do? Think about something you're going through right now. Everybody has something going on in their life. How you feel about that situation depends on how you view it. If you're at the top of a mountain, everything looks really small, doesn't it? Doesn't it? But if you're at the bottom of a valley, you look up and everything just looks bigger than it really is. How you feel about that problem you have with family, or that problem you have with your work, that problem you have with yourself, it probably is bigger if you're staring up at it. So we need to realize that what happens to us and how valuable we are is separate, is different. Because the Scriptures say in Romans 8, 37, that in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loves us. That when we are in Yeshua, when we are walking in faith, these things that come against us, we can be a conqueror over that. We can face that. We have been promised blessings. Amen? Isn't that good? But in all these things we are more than conquerors. Romans chapter 8. And no matter what we face, we can rise above it. We can come against it. Do you believe me? Do you believe me? That you can feel good about yourself even if bad things are happening when you begin to view yourself and your life as Yahweh sees it. Now that's the difference there because where is Yahweh? He's with us but yet He's in Shemaiah. When we have His attitude, when we have His mind, we begin to look at these problems differently. Think for a minute about the Holocaust. Could any good come out of 22 million people dying in concentration camps, work camps? Could anything good come out of that? Have you ever heard of the name Viktor Frankl? One of the greatest psychologists ever to live. He survived the Holocaust. And he has written books about how he was able to not hate the people that were doing horrible things to him because of his faith. Have you ever heard of this man? He wrote a book called Night. That's Elie Wiesel. Pulitzer Prize winner. Nobel Peace Prize winner. Survivor of the Holocaust. Anne Frank was killed and yet her memory lives on. Even school children today are reading about her and learning about the Holocaust. Now we think of how bad that was. That kind of puts our problems in a little bit of perspective, doesn't it? Think about that. Good can come from the worst of all evils with these people. So think about how good can come from the bad and the problems that you have. So good can come out of that. Understand that. Know that today. Proverbs 3 says, Trust Yahweh with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding and all your ways. Acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes, but fear Yahweh. Turn away from evil. So we've got to step back and trust Yahweh. And we've got to understand that our peaks and our valleys are connected. Most of the time in our lives, we cannot say, This is where the valley ends and where the peak begins. Now yes, sometimes there are traumatic experiences that we go through. That we know it was on this day that this occurred. Yet most of the times in our lives, even there, there was something leading up to that. That led to that either becoming a valley or becoming a peak. They are connected, and we got to see that. That the good that we do, the bad that we do, these things are connected. And not just that they are connected, but how. The errors that we make when things are good, create the bad times in the future. This is key to understand. That whatever we do when things are good, are going to create our future bad times. Think about King David. He is King of Israel. He is a mighty warrior. And what does he do while he's out one day? In the garden, he looks out and sees someone bathing. Do you think he should have been looking in the first place? And there's, who is it, Bathsheba? And so he looks and he compares. Here he is king. And he compares himself and says, ooh, that looks better than what I have. And so what he did in the good times created a valley for him, a down time, a bad time in the future. And the wise things that we do when things are bad, create our future good times. When things are bad. Think about Jonah. In the belly of a whale, and yet he repented. He got spit out. And he was able to go and to witness. And we know that he still didn't want to. But he was able to go and do that. So when things are down, guess what we need to do sometimes? Do the opposite of what we've been doing. Doesn't that make sense? And when things are good, we need to really be reflective on that. And know that we cannot stay at one place at all times. Remember when Moshe died, Moses died, what happened to his body? Were they able to bury it? Yahweh hid it, didn't he? But didn't they want to find it? Remember the story? They sent people out to find it. You know why? They were out chasing that spiritual ghost, that memory of how things were in the past. We can't do that. Because we'll never find it. Remember the good old days. I remember when it used to be like this. We can't go there. We can't remember that. What about when they're on top of the mountain with the transfiguration? Yeshua. What do they say? Oh, let's put up some tents. Let's have Sukkot. Let's camp out. We're going to have a good time. And he says, no. You can't stay on a mountain. And we can't stay in a valley. Praise Yahweh. The truth is, get this in your mind today, Ephesus. Get this in your mind. We create our own good and bad times far more than we realize. Life is constantly moving. And what we go through, many times we can look back and say, oh, I do reap what I sow. But Yeshua said, look at the birds. Look at the lilies of the field. They don't think about what they're going to do tomorrow. They live today for the fullest. And they are able to go forward. In Hebrews chapter 13, it says that through Yeshua, therefore, let us continually offer to Yahweh a sacrifice of praise. The fruit of lips that confess His name. That whether it's good, whether it's bad, whether it's in between, whether we feel like giving in, or just going forward, that we continually offer to Yahweh that sacrifice of praise. We are grateful. Remember, think about David. Was he grateful when he saw Bathsheba? He might have been grateful he was king. You know, and he could move things around and make it work for him. But what happened was, David began comparing himself to someone else. And that's what a valley is. Hear this. A valley is a moment when you long for what is missing. The person who spends their whole life preparing for the Olympics. Let's say that they are an Olympic swimmer. Doing the butterfly. Doing the worm. Doing the snake. Okay, maybe it's the butterfly. He prepares his whole life for the butterfly. He works as hard as he can. He eats certain foods. He doesn't party. You know, he stays clean. He does all this. And yet he does his best. And he gets the silver medal at the Olympics. That's awesome, isn't it? When is it that he realizes that he is a loser? When is it that he realizes that someone beat him? When he looks to the gold medal. The only time that he realizes and that he is sad is when he compares himself to someone else. But if he says, you know what, I did my best. I worked as hard as I could. This is what I got. Then he's satisfied. He's happy where he was. We can't always change where we are. I wish sometimes that I could just, you know, wiggle my nose and everything would be better. But it was only when that Olympic swimmer compared himself to the gold that he realized that he was in a valley. Yet when you're at a peak, it's when you appreciate what you have when we're grateful. And that's called the power of attraction. When you have an attitude of gratitude. When you say, you know what, thank you. And as you begin to say thank you and thank you and thank you, more good things are going to come into your life. I've made it a habit and a practice now. When I get out of the bed in the morning, if it's not head first, when I put one foot down, I say thank. And when I put the other foot down, I say you. So the first words out of my mouth are thank you. Did you know that there's a traditional Jewish blessing that is said as you wake up in the morning. The traditional Orthodox Jews, what they do is they wake up in the morning. They wash their hands and then they say this blessing. That blessing starts out, I thank you. I thank you. For you've graciously made me and given me breath and you've woken me up. Given me life. Or do we wake up and say, oh no. Not the alarm clock again. It's Monday. Oh no. You don't do that, do you, April? Never, right? Never. What we do in our life, we compare ourselves to other people. Isn't that thou shalt not covet? Is that a problem? The truth is you cannot always control external events. But you can control what you believe and what you do. Traffic jam, can you control it? No. Now we live in the south where a traffic jam is what, like a cow in the road? I mean that's a traffic jam sometimes for us. But we can't control that cow. We can't control that, but we can control how we respond. You've got Rabbi Shaul, Paul. And he's teaching and he's preaching and he's telling people about Yeshua. He's showing them in the Torah that Yeshua is Messiah. And do you know what they did to him? They lock him up and they put him in prison. They beat him. And he's shackled to the wall. His feet, his arms are in shackles. He's in pain and he begins to wake up. And in the middle of the night, do you know what he does? He doesn't complain. He begins to sing praises. The book of Acts tells us he begins to lift his voice in songs of praise even though he's in prison. And do you know what happened next? An earthquake occurred. And his chains went free and he was able to go free. And he was able to witness to the jailer and to share Messiah with him. He changed his attitude and do you know what? It changed his situation. I'm here to tell you today that if we do change our attitude, it can change what we're going through. Don't believe the evil report. Remember those ten spies? The ten spies, people listened to them and that's what occurred there. Sometimes things happen that are not good. Doesn't it say that in Romans chapter 8 that all things work together for the good of them who love Yahweh and those according to his purpose? But that verse does not say that everything is good because everything is not good. You run over my toe, it is not good. There may be some good that comes out of it, like I get to sue you, but everything is not good. I was just joking. I was just joking. It's our attitude that we have to guard. So if we're in a valley and we want to go to a peak, we want to get to a better situation, there's two things that we can change. And only two things. Number one is we can change what's happening or we can change how we feel about it. Isn't that simple? We can either change what's happening or we can change how we feel about it. How we feel about it. That means we can't change what just occurred. Sometimes in life we can't change it. We can't go back. And that's where it goes back to Proverbs chapter 3. Trust Yahweh with all your heart. Sometimes life is hard. Sometimes life is painful. And what we have to do is we have to change how we feel about it. We have to think about how we're feeling about it and make some choices. The path out of a valley appears when you choose to see things differently. That may be the most important thing in this teaching today. When we choose to believe Yahweh's word. When we choose to see things better, it leads to a better result. Let me give you an example of a valley experience. I'm working for a Christian bookstore. Doing my Christian thing. Going to a Christian church and leading Sunday school. Doing a Christian radio program and, you know, teaching Sunday school, leading worship. Some staff at the church. I was their janitor as well. And things started to occur in my faith. I began to search for the truth, the emet, the Hebrew roots of the scriptures. Began keeping the Sabbath day Sabbath and stopped keeping the Sunday Sabbath. And one day, one Sunday after church hour, I got a phone call from my boss who employed me at the Christian bookstore. And she said, Daniel, we need to talk. I said, okay, what's going on? She said, well, I've decided we just have too many differences. And I'm going to have to let you go. And I said, let me go do what? Let me go what? What do you mean? She said, I'm going to have to fire you. And I literally almost dropped the phone. I'm like, excuse me? Out from nowhere. Had no idea this was coming. I said, are you joking me? Because I had done my job. I'm still faithful. I just wasn't working on Saturdays. Profits were up. Business was good. Things were great. And she said, well, we just don't have. The same things in common as we used to. I said, well, what do you mean? We have the same Bible. It's a revelation, right? We have the same, you know, we're still working for profit in the business. We're still doing. She said, yes. And that's why I tried to talk her out of it. Here comes a big valley for me. And she says, no, I've made my decision. Now, here I am. My wife's a stay-at-home mother. We have one child. She's pregnant with another. We just painted the bedroom Pepto-Bismol pink. Because we know we're getting ready to have a girl. Were we planning on moving or changing or doing anything different? Not at all. Yet she says, oh, Daniel, that house that you live in, that you rent from me, I want you out in 30 days. That's when I lost it. I didn't get mad. That's when the fountain of my tears just started flowing. And I said, what? She said, well, you need to be out in 30 days. And I hung up the phone, and I did what any normal person would have done. I just started, continued crying. And my wife comes in, and she's like, what's the matter? And I tell her. And in a matter of, you know, 15-minute conversation, I don't have a house. I don't have a job. Didn't know what to do. So the next day, I did like any good citizen would have done. I went and cleaned out my stuff. And I go down to the unemployment office. And I'll never forget how humiliating that was for me. First of all, number one, you have to go in and file for unemployment. But number two, I couldn't stop crying. The whole time. I walked in. They made me wait. I filled out some papers. I go into the office, and I had no idea that this was going to occur. And I had invested my life and my heart and my soul into this business and thought we were like family. But yet, too many differences. Are we talking about a peak or a valley here? We're talking about a deep valley at least. My story goes that we, here I am unemployed, without a house. We began looking for a place to live. Began looking for work, not knowing what to do. And during this time, my mother-in-law gets very, very sick. Cellulitis in her legs. She's in ICU. She almost dies. And my wife has to spend a lot of time in a hospital 30 miles away. So I got child duty and had to find our house to move in, and we ended up having to paint it and go through all of this. But do you think she could have spent that time at that hospital if I would have been working a full-time job? Not a chance. So we're there, we're doing that, and I get a phone call from a lady, and she says, Daniel, I hear you've lost your job, a Christian believer. I said, yes. She says, well, I want to help you. She said, I'm going to pay you a large sum of money, and every week I just want you to come clean my house. I said, I can do that. I can clean. So I show up at this house that happens to be three stories, about 4,900 square feet. She was getting her money worth, let's just say that. I can't say that I was abused, but I can say that they would go buy groceries and leave them in the bags for me to put up. Okay? But I wouldn't say that I was abused. But it was Yahweh's hand giving us the money that we needed to make it through. And then here I am, unemployed, I'm somebody's maid, and I get a phone call one day, and the guy says, Daniel, I hear you've got a job. Yep. Well, we want to hire you, and we want to pay you this much money, salary guaranteed your first year. And I said, excuse me? He said, we want to hire you. We want you to do this. It's hard work, but we want to do it. I go from having a job, making it by barely, with government assistance, I thought I was doing great, to going to unemployed and cleaning somebody's house, to making a substantial amount of money guaranteed per year and launching a career for me in management. This occurred in about six months. I tell you, I probably would still be at that bookstore today. I went from a valley, and there was able to be some good in that valley, where we were able to help with those who were sick, were able to help other people, and I was able to be taken from this place to that place into a better place. I didn't give up, and I tried to stay positive, but by seeing things differently, by looking for opportunity, by looking for the hidden good in the bad. We all know the serenity prayer, right? This is better than the serenity prayer. Maya Angelou said, if you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't complain. That would be a great bumper sticker if you had a 20-foot bumper. Philippians 2.14 says, do everything without complaining or arguing. When you talk about how bad it is, it gets worse. Right? And yet, when we talk about how good it is, guess what? It gets better, because we convince ourselves it is better. We can change our valley into a peak when we find the good, and we use the good that's in the bad time. I'm unemployed. What do I spend my time doing? Well, we find a new house. I get to paint the house. That's a horrible story. I think that house painting will be a level in hell, that people who go to hell will have to paint for all of eternity. The only thing worse than painting a house is being with a lady while she shops for shoes. That's got to be the worst type of torture. That's what they do at Guantanamo Bay now. They make them sit there while somebody's buying shoes. It's the worst thing in the world. But yet, while I'm going through this hard time, we're able to get a good time. You know what? The lady said, you know what? I'm going to let you rent this house from me, this new house, and you don't even have to pay the first month's rent, no security deposit, if you paint the inside. How about that? That was a good thing, until I realized I'm not a painter. I've got more on my hair than I did on the wall. I've used three different colors in one room. That was interesting, but we found the good in the bad. And you can do that yourself. Our attitude is what we have to make sure we keep in check because our attitude is the filter for everything. Because between the peaks and the valleys is life. And how we manage things when they're bad determines how they're going to be when they're good. How we manage a valley determines the peak. If you're taking care of yourself, you're exercising, you're eating right, you're not going to get sick very often, are you? Most people aren't. But if you don't take care of yourself, and when you do get sick, do you think you're going to be sick longer? Are you going to have the immune system that you need? No. So we've got to be careful. But if we don't like something, we can change it. Paul was in prison, began to sing. We can begin to do the same. And let me tell you, shalom or peace occurs when we realize that you are not your good times. You are not your bad times. You don't have to go like this, up and down, up and down. You can stay constant. Think about Peter for a minute. He's walking on the water. Things are good. He's looking at Yeshua. He's on a peak. And what happens? It says that he began to look around. And what happens? He took his eye, he looked down at the water at the valley, and he began to think. But who grabbed his hand? Who helped him? It was Yeshua. Yeshua didn't kick him or slap him or shoot him while he was down. Yeshua didn't say, oh, come on, get back up. You can do it. Yeshua grabbed him. And that's true peace, is we realize that, you know what, we're all going to have these times of good and bad times. That's not us. Those are things that we go through. If we do not learn while we're in a valley, we get bitter. It would have been very easy for me to get bitter, and I was. I'll confess to you now. I was bitter to the person who fired me, kicked me out of her house. I was bitter for years. That means I didn't learn from that situation. But when we learn from a valley, guess what? We're better. And so now the years have passed, and I'm better. I love this person. I pray the best for them. Galway doesn't change. We change. Life changes. The truth is we don't have to be stressed out and worried, but we can have balance. Jeremiah 2911 says, I know the thoughts I think about you, says Galway. Thoughts of shalom and not evil, to give you a good hope in the end. Galway wants the best for us, but we stop his best sometimes from coming to us because we create our own valleys. We make things worse than they really are, regardless of the circumstances. So how do we do it? How do we get to the top of Mount Everest? We're in the valley of Jebuk. We're at the bottom. Number one is we've got to make sure that we are appreciating and managing the good times. Remember the prodigal son? He had the money. He was the life of the party. He was on a peak, wasn't he? But he spent all his money. Where was he? In a trough of a pig. He went from peak to a valley, didn't he? He didn't manage and appreciate his good times. But then he realized, I shall arise, go back to my father's house. A servant at his house is better than pig trough, than this junk that the pig eats. So we've got to see that. See the reality and not waste things. Remember when Yeshua did the miracle with the loaves and the fishes? It tells us that there were, at one point it says five baskets for one of the miracles. At another point it says there were twelve baskets of leftovers. It's important that it tells us it wasn't just waste. It was leftovers for a reason. It was a reminder to be eaten later. So when things are good, store a little away. You know what? Things are really good. I want to invest in others. Remember the talents? It was the one who didn't invest, who just put it away. That was rebuke. How do you invest in others? It's by love. It's by serving. Here's a key. 1 Corinthians 9.24 says, Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? So run in such a way that you may obtain the prize. Everyone competes for the prize as temperate. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. It's time to get out of that valley. It's time to get out of that valley and to run the race. To run up the mountain. To go forward. But what are we? We're kind of like those disciples that day when Yeshua said, Stay here and pray. And what happened to them? They slept. They slept. We think, Oh, we'll just stick around in the valley for a little while. I'd rather sleep than pray. It always says pray when things are down, when you're in that valley. Avoid believing. Janie, avoid believing things are better than they really are when you're on a peak. This is tough. But sometimes we're at the top of the world. We're kind of like the guy off the Titanic and he stands on the end of the Titanic and says, I'm the king of the world. And then later he's running because they're shooting at him and trying to kill him. Avoid believing things are better than they really are. Don't be that eternal optimist and think that you're ten foot tall and bulletproof and no problem can occur. Pride comes before a fall. Don't do that. But the opposite is also true. Everybody say opposite. Avoid believing things are worse than they really are. Don't be Debbie Downer. Oh me, oh my, small fry. Things are bad. Things are really bad. My negative bank account just went negative again. I don't have any friends. I don't have any family. Nobody cares for me. We begin to think that things are really, really we convince ourselves that things are worse. You don't believe me? Cut on the radio or the TV. All this talk about the economy. The economy is bad. The economy is crashing. Recession, depression, all of this. A little bit of good news will change that news around. What we have to learn to do is to make reality our friend. Make reality our friend. We've got to learn to make reality our friend. And what that means is step back from the situation and say what's really going on here? What's really going on here? Is it as bad as I think it is? Or is it as good as I think it is? Think for a minute about Job's wife. What did she say? I'll just curse Yahweh and die. She was thinking things were worse than they really were. Wasn't she? Think about it. But yet look at the Psalms and look at how great David was speaking praises to Yahweh. He had his thoughts right. The most common reason that we leave a peak too soon is because of arrogance masquerading as confidence. Here's the truth. We think things are better than they really are. We think we're untouchable and then we slip and we fall. Kepha? Ring a bell? Peter? Oh, Master I love you. And Yeshua says before the rooster crows you're going to deny me three times. And what does he say? I would never deny you. I would never do that. I would never sin. I would never fall. Not me again. I'm never going to do it. And what happens? He even curses Yeshua. He says I don't know that man. Three times. See he was arrogant. He was looking around and he says oh yeah. He had that ego. You know what ego stands for? Ego. E-G-O. Everybody's got one. We all got one. And it's just oh yeah. I'm never going to do that. And then what happens on a computer? We get this little pop up. Hmm. I like to play poker. Hmm. I like to do this. I like to do that. We've got to be careful. Oh, I'd never do lashon hara. I'd never talk about that person. Ring, ring, ring. Hey, did I hear? Oh, I did hear about that. And then we're in trouble. What did HaSatan want to do? Ascend to the throne of Yahweh. What about those that offered strange fire? Oh, we'll do exactly what Yahweh says. The most common reason you stay in a valley too long is fear. We think we're just comfortable. Oh, things are okay. Things are good. I'm not going to step out. I'm not going to call that person. I'm not going to write that person. What if they don't like me? Remember the Israelites? What did they do? They said, take us back to Egypt. They said, we'd rather eat the food of Egypt than to die out here in the desert. They were comfortable in Egypt. Was that a valley or what? Doesn't it even say that you go down to Egypt, you go up to Israel? That's what it says. See, they were more comfortable and that fear was there. What if? Have you ever said what if? How many times today have you said what if? And that's that fear that makes you feel like things are comfortable. But let me tell you something. Sometimes when we're in a valley, it's not a bad thing. And it's not as bad as it feels. Because it's when we're in a valley that we listen to Yahweh better. Do you agree? We can hear the voice of Yahweh more clearly when we're in that valley. So the first thing we do is when we're in a valley, when we realize that things aren't as good as where they want to be, when we begin comparing ourselves, we say, you know what Yahweh, I'm just not on fire for you as I need to be. I don't like this at home. I don't like this problem with my family. Whatever it is, we ask ourselves, what do I need to learn from this? Then we say this, what is the truth in this situation? What does Yahweh say about it? Is this really bad? Is this really good? What's the truth in this situation? The next thing you say is, how can I show more love? Once you get the truth of it, let's just pretend that my wife and I are in trouble. We're having some problems and the truth in the situation is things aren't going in a good direction. Wouldn't that be the truth? So I ask Yahweh first of all, what can I learn from this? And then the next thing I say is, how can I show more love? How can I be of more service? How can I step out of my comfort zone and do more for my wife? Shut my mouth more. Now is the time for amen. Let me give you an example. Just a few weeks ago I started asking myself this. I guess it was a week ago I said, Yahweh, how can I show more love? And I thought about our bedtime duties when we start getting the kids ready for bed. And we start getting them ready for bed at 7. 7 a.m. No, it's closer to 8ish or so. And I said, how can I do this? Because I put the older two to bed, which is really easy. Get into bed, brush their teeth, say their prayers, you know, do that. And I do help with the baby, maybe make a bottle, sing to her, stick her into bed. That's easy. But she's got the middle two, which is hard. Which is like, you've got to do three exorcisms and you've got to sing the right songs and say the right prayers and find the right toy, read the right books. I mean, it's a whole series of things to do and if you miss one, you've got to start all the way over. It's really bad. I mean, it just gets crazy. So I said, how can I be of more love to my wife? And I thought about that. Because bedtime is me time. While they're going to bed, I'm in front of the internet, I'm in front of the computer, I'm writing, I'm researching, I'm reading, I'm getting my thoughts together. That couple hours right there is my study time. Well, I started reading the children their books. I just jumped in and said, let me read you your books tonight. And no clouds in heaven parted and I didn't hear any special music and I didn't hear the voice of Billy Graham saying, well done, my good and faithful servant. But I knew that I was showing more love. I was taking one thing off of her plate and I just want to get me out of a valley that could be there. So the question is, how can you show more love? If you're having problems with your spouse, how can you show more love? What can you learn from it? And then we want to ask ourselves this, how can I use the good that is hidden in this bad time? You ever heard that phrase of heaping burning coals upon somebody? How can I use the good? Yeshua said to pray for your enemy, bless those who curse you. Proverbs chapter 15 verse 1 says, a soft answer turns away wrath, but harsh words cause quarrels. If I'm having problems with my wife, if she says something that I don't like, if she says something that I don't need to hear, then I don't respond harshly, I just zip it. And maybe I ignore it and don't say anything at all. More love, more service. Yeshua's on the tree, and what does he say? Father, forgive them, they know not what they do. Paul was persecuting the believers, and then he became one. And he used that experience to win people. That's called a testimony. Everybody say testimony. T-E-S-T-I-M-O-N-Y T-E-S-T-I-M-O-N-Y You can't have a testimony without... Not money! You can't have a testimony without a test! Money helps. We all go through things. You have your story. I've got my story. And so we share that story of how we were in that valley. Isn't that what Amazing Grace says? I once was lost, but now I'm found? Psalm 34 says I will extol Yahweh at all times, and His praise will always be on my mouth. My soul will boast in Yahweh. Let the afflicted hear and rejoice. Glorify Yahweh with me. Let us exalt His name together. I sought Yahweh, and He answered me. He delivered me from all my valleys, from my times of fear. So I want to ask you to do this. If you're in a valley, or if you're ever in a valley, create a vision of how you want the situation to be, and keep that vision in your mind. If your valley is you don't have any money, envision yourself having enough to meet your needs. If your valley is your spouse is not born again, envision that person born again. What would you be doing together? Begin praying that way, and then begin thanking Yahweh that that has already occurred. Be thankful in everything. Imagine yourself being on your peak with everything better. Believe it in every small detail. Right now, I'm imagining my children listening to me. Obeying me the first time. I'm envisioning that they make my coffee for me every morning. And I'm waking up with the smell of eggs in the morning. I see myself walking into the living room with it spotless. And the shine coming from the windows. They've opened the windows to let the sun shine in. I'm envisioning things better than they are now. I'm envisioning things as they could be in the future. I'm waking up at 7 o'clock and they're already dressed and ready to go to school. I'm envisioning that they've already cut the front yard. I'm envisioning things better. And you may call that wishing. You may call it smoking. But it's a dream. And if I keep that dream in my mind, and then I ask myself, is what I'm doing now going to bring me there? You know what? Sometimes our mind is full of our fearful vision. All we think about is how bad things could be. All we think about is how bad our children are. But what we need to do is think about how good they could be. Let me ask you this. You ever notice that your kids are better for someone else than they are for you? Do you know why? It's because we think they're going to misbehave and guess what happens? They misbehave. We have that vision in our mind and it comes true. It tells us Proverbs 23 7 As a man thinks in his heart, so he is. 1 Peter chapter 3 Whoever would love life and see good days must keep his tongue from evil, his lips from deceitful speech. He must turn from evil and do good. He must seek peace and pursue it. But the eyes of Yahweh are on the righteous. His ears are attentive to their prayer. But the face of Yahweh is against those who do evil. To be on a peak longer, we need to be humble and grateful for everything. Everything. Not fearful vision. Hear me now. When we're in a valley and we have pain, it comes from a truth that we have ignored. Think about Elijah. He's in the valley. Literally. He's whining. He's crying. I'm the only one left. And the voice of Yahweh comes to him and says, No, you're not. Quit having the pity party. Come out and go face Jezebel. Go face Ahab. Go to the mountain. Sacrifice to me. Let me show you a miracle. I'm bringing you out of the valley. That's what Yahweh's doing with us today. He's bringing us out like He did with Elijah. And He's telling us, don't think you're alone in this. We all go through it. Stay true. When we're in that valley, we've got to remember. And when we're on top of the mountain, Amen, when we're on top of the mountain and things are good, we need to do more of what put us there in the first place. We need to keep making things better. And we need to do more for others. In the book of Gilead, the book of Revelation, the book of Revelation, He says, Behold, I stand at the door and knock. And He tells him something very interesting. In Revelation chapter 3, He says, Remember what you have heard. Remember what you used to do. Repent and return to your first love. Remember it. Repent of how you've fallen and then return to your first love. That's how we get out of the valley spiritually. That's how we get out of the valley physically. It's never too soon. Everybody say that. It's never too soon. It's never too soon. Say it. It's never too soon to make the good times and the bad times work. You see, we think of the Holocaust, we think of that's bad. Yet we know that it brought good in the world. We think of what we're going through. We think that's bad, but it can bring good. We are in control of our attitude. Remember that the way you look at a situation is just as important as what you do about it. Proverbs 16, 3 says, Commit to Yahweh whatever you do and your plans will succeed. Not that they might succeed, but they will succeed. Peter became the leader of the early believers. Jochanan, John, is on the Isle of Patmos in prison. Do you call that a valley? But while he's there, he receives the book of Revelation. He wrote that while he was there in a valley. Sometimes we have to set ourselves aside and think about the situation. As a man thinks in his heart, so he is. If you think this is bad, it's going to get worse. So if we can change our mind about a situation, we can change the situation. Do you believe it? It's the truth. One of my favorite quotes from one of the greatest speakers of all time, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said this. He said, I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and every mountain shall be made low. The rough places will be made plain, the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of Yahweh will be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. That was his dream. Do you know what? That's your dream, Stephen, Connie, Melanie. That's your dream because it comes right out of Isaiah chapter 40. But read it in context. It says, the voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, prepare the way of Yahweh, make straight in the desert a highway, for every valley shall be exalted, every mountain and hill shall be made low, the crooked place shall be made straight, the rough place is plain. That's your prayer. That's your desire, that these peaks and valleys you go through, that Yahweh is going to bring the peaks down, the valleys up, and make it straight for you with your attitude as you keep your focus and your attention on him. For it says, the glory of Yahweh shall be revealed, all flesh shall see it together, the mouth of Yahweh has spoken it. Set yourself aside. I guarantee you, if you're in a valley, you're tired, you're sad, you're depressed, you're frustrated. But if you're on a mountain, things are good, what are you? You're excited, you're energized. It's time to stop this journey of ups and downs and to be the same. To be straight, to be in control so that we can respond, not react, to what happens. So how do we apply it? Two reviews. Number one, make reality your friend. Ask yourself, what is the truth in the situation? Number two, find and use the good hidden in the bad. Relax. Bad times, valleys, will end. This too shall pass. If you're in a valley, do the opposite of what put you there. If you're in jail because you were stealing, stop stealing! Doesn't that make sense? Get out of yourself. Be more of service and show more love. Uncover the good and the bad. Appreciate the good times. Do more of what got you there. Do more for others. Follow your vision. Again, think about where you want things to be. Have details in your mind and then share this with others. Think about it and share it with others. For Yahweh has promised us that He will be with us. Whether we're in a valley, whether we're on a peak, whether it's good, whether it's bad, but yet we learn just like with Abraham Lincoln, good and bad things happen to everyone. And yet, when you think of his life, do you remember the times he ran for legislator and lost? Do you remember the times he ran for vice president and lost? Do you remember the times he had a nervous breakdown, his sweetheart died? No! You look at your penny, you look at Mount Rushmore, you remember what he did for the civil rights movement, you remember what he did to lead our country. You remember the good. It's time that we do the same and that we understand life is full of these ups and downs just like your heartbeat. And yet Yahweh says, Yeshua says, I am with you. I will never leave you nor forsake you. So whatever valley we're going through, we can come out of that valley, we can walk right out of that valley and have the favor of Yahweh. Amen? Father, we just come before you thanking you, praising you that we can change our attitude. That we don't have to be down and depressed but we can look and see the promises you have for us. We don't have to stay in a valley. We don't have to be destitute. But Father, we can repent, we can remember and we can return to our first love. Amen. Thank you again for listening to the Finding EMET radio program. Please visit our website to learn more about the EMET, the truth of the scriptures. Search the Bible, submit your prayer request, or read an article on various subjects. The website is www.findemet.com www.findemet.com www.findemet.com CD copies of this teaching are available for free by submitting a request at the website or write to us at EMET Ministries 1310 Trent Street Newberry, SC 29108 That's EMET Ministries 1310 Trent Street Newberry, SC 29108 Thank you again for listening to Finding EMET with Daniel Rendleman. May you find the EMET and may the EMET, may the truth set you free. www.findemet.com www.findemet.com www.findemet.com www.findemet.com www.findemet.com