Just Dig Another Well

Hello! Welcome back to the blog! 

It's been a while, but I'm excited to continue writing again. I want to pick up where I left off in my study of Psalm 84, so let's get right into it! 

 

Psalm 84:6 says, "Who passing through the valley of Baca, make it a well; the rain also filleth the pools." 

 

If you recall in previous blog posts, I began discussing the valley of Baca and how it is a comparison to dry seasons or trials on the Christian journey. (You may want to quickly click back through those blogs as a refresher.) In this blog, I want to focus on the part of the verse talking about making wells. What does it mean to "make it a well"? And, how can we apply this to our own lives? This is how we study the Bible--what is God saying here, and how can I apply it? How does this passage reveal Jesus, and how can I become more like Him? 

 

In our study of the valley of Baca, we learned that this particular valley was known for it's dryness. It was not a desired path for travelers, as it often caused weeping. However, we know that God is in the transforming business according to Ecclesiastes 3:11. He makes all things beautiful! Through salvation, God takes us from death to life, from wickedness to righteousness, from sinners to saints. He loves to change people's lives. If you are saved, you have experienced God's transforming power firsthand, and what an amazing power it is! Psalm 84:6 teaches us that God, with His transforming power, can take a dry and barren valley, and turn it into one that is overflowing with water. God can take what is ugly, messing, and painful, and transform it into something absolutely beautiful. 

 

A well is made up of two primary things--a hole and water. Similarly, in order for us to understand the idea of making wells in the context of trials, we must also understand two primary ideas. 

 

1. FAITH 

 

Faith is saturated all throughout the Old Testament, but then Jesus in the New Testament reemphasized the need for faith. Those who had faith were the ones who experienced God's transforming power. Often, the healing miracles Jesus performed were in response to a person's faith. You can read all throughout the gospels and find examples of this. Faith gives us eyes to see the impossible. As Hebrews 11:1 says, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Saving faith gives us eyes to see Christ's righteousness as our own. Transforming faith gives us eyes to see ourselves as a new creature in Christ Jesus. This kind of faith applied to trials gives us eyes to see the "light at the end of the tunnel" and the ways God can use hardship for our sanctification. 

 

However, faith is always coupled with obedience. This is the evidence of our faith. As James wisely says in chapter 2 verse 26, "For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also." Faith is not some abstract idea that can only be contained in our minds in hearts. Rather, it should overflow into our lives with our thoughts, words, and actions. Faith is pointless if there is not obedience to follow. 

 

I recently had to replace my car's battery after getting stranded at a local coffee shop (what a place to be stranded!). I had never experienced anything like jumping a car or changing its' battery--I am just a girl. Thankfully, the Lord has blessed me with a loving and generous church family, and one of the men from my church was able to help me get the right new battery and replace the old one. Now, I could have been skeptical and said that I didn't really believe my car was fixed, or I could have believed that my car worked perfectly fine and for the sake of safety never touched it again. Both of these scenarios are pointless. Instead, I chose to trust that the man who replaced my car battery knew what he was doing (and knew far more than I did), and that if I were to turn my car on, it would work. There was only one thing left for me to do--turn the car on. Faith is believing that the car will start when I turn it on; obedience is putting the key in the ignition and actually turning the car on. True faith always results in action. 

 

In Psalm 84, faith is believing that if I dig a well in the desert, God will be able to fill it. Obedience is actually digging the well. Therefore, faith is seen when one digs the well. Baca is a dry valley. Where in the world would someone get water to fill the well? Why would you dig a well in a place such as this? Christians can view trials the same way. What is the point of this? Why would God let something like this happen to me? If we're not careful, this kind of doubtful thinking can creep in and push us away from God. We have to acknowledge that it can be difficult to have faith in these dry seasons. The last thing we want to do is roll up our sleeves and start digging. But, the best thing we can do in the midst of the struggle is to believe that Almighty God is up to something good, and then live our lives proving that we truly do believe it. Obedience may just be as simple as getting out of bed in the morning. It may be spending 10 minutes a day in God's Word. It may be looking for someone to encourage even though we don’t feel like it. This is how we dig wells in our dry valleys. Our faith gives us eyes to see those wells full of water.

 

 

2. FILLING

 

So now, we have holes in our valleys. Where do we get water to fill those holes? Water that will truly satisfy us can only come from one place, and Psalm 84:6 doesn't hesitate to give us the answer. The end of the verse says, "the rain also filleth the pools." If you remember, we're in the desert. There is no rain whatsoever. Which means that this is a miraculous rain! A rain that only could have come from God. 

 

I mentioned Ecclesiastes 3:11, which says, "He hath made every thing beautiful in his time," but that verse doesn't stop there. The rest of it says "also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end." The word in Hebrew used here for "world" is "olam", which means "eternal, beyond comprehension." There is something in all of us that longs for the eternal. We long for complete satisfaction in something that is just beyond our grasp. The world tries to grab at anything and everything temporal to find this satisfaction, and if the Christian is not careful, he too can grasp at all the wrong things. However, the temporal cannot satisfy what is meant to be satisfied by the eternal. 

 

See, when we try to fill our wells with anything other than the water God offers, we will ultimately be disappointed and still thirsty. But, when we allow God to fill our wells with His Living Water, we will never thirst again! That's a promise from Jesus directly in Matthew 5:6 and John 4:14. Jesus Himself is the satisfaction of our longing. He is our portion--our inheritance, as the Psalms say. We get to enjoy Him forever! Is that not the best water we could ever ask for? In our pain and sorrow, we dig wells, and Jesus comes in and fills those wells with Himself. In Him, we have rest and joy and peace as a result of our faith. He gives us a testimony so that when others walk through the same valley, they can drink from the wells we’ve created! He transforms our sorrow in to joy. He turns our weeping into rejoicing. He takes our dry, desert valley, and turns it into a wellspring overflowing with water. How amazing! 

 

God is doing a work that He has not allowed us to fully see or understand. Maybe one day later on down the road we will be able to look back and see the big picture. Our job right now is to have faith and obey; dig a well, and let God do the filling. 

 

 

My encouragement to you is to continue to dig those wells, and let Jesus transform your valley into something beautiful!