{"id":33373,"date":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/insights-from-valley\/"},"modified":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","slug":"insights-from-valley","status":"publish","type":"sermons","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/insights-from-valley\/","title":{"rendered":"Insights from the Valley"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2005\/08\/18777.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n<p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Voices are being raised more and more that tell us our attitude,\nour state of mind, has a great effect on our health. Our attitude toward\nourselves, our attitude toward life, our relationships with other people have a\npowerful effect on our physical life as well as our emotional life. Fear,\nresentment, anxieties, a lack of purpose in  can be just as\ndetrimental to our health as can a whole variety of germs. That means our\nattitude is a very crucial ingredient in retaining health. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">I began to wrestle with that concept a lot during the last three\nmonths when I walked through my valley. The concept of contentment: I kept\nasking myself, <em>What is it?<\/em> I must tell you that in 23 years of\npreaching, I have never preached on Philippians 4:1112, where it says. &#8220;I have\nlearned to be content.&#8221; I&#8217;ve tried a number of times, but I have never felt I\ngot close enough to what Paul really had in mind that I understood and really\ngrasped what he was saying. And so I always backed off, because every time I\nthought of contentment, I could think of a lot of reasons and circumstances in\nwhich we may not be content. I never really understood it. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">I believe that during the last few months while I walked my\nvalley, God, by his Spirit, has given me some very helpful insight for my life\nabout contentment. And I want to share that with you. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Remember while we study this passage, it&#8217;s one of Paul&#8217;s prison\nepistles. He&#8217;s in prison, probably in Rome, probably chained to a guard on\neither side of him 24 hours a day. It&#8217;s in that setting that he says, &#8220;I have\nlearned to be content.&#8221; It&#8217;s not only a testimony about himself; the very clear\nimplication is that you fellow Christians ought to learn it, too. Let&#8217;s talk\nabout it. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <strong>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Contentment\nis not what many people think.<\/span>\n      <\/strong>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">To spend our time first in trying to define it isn&#8217;t so easy.\nIt&#8217;s a rather difficult concept to pin down, and it&#8217;s open to a lot of\nmisunderstanding.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">It&#8217;s easier, I think, to define discontentment. You know what\nthat is. Every time we complain, every time we grumble, every time we express\nour envy and our jealousy, we&#8217;re expressing discontent. Discontent is when you\nare unhappy with your present circumstances. Discontent is when you have an\nuneasy state of mind because of the things that are happening in your\nlife. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Well, then, is contentment saying, &#8220;I&#8217;m happy about what&#8217;s\nhappening in my life&#8221;? Is contentment liking your present circumstances?\nNot necessarily. That&#8217;s not exactly what Paul was talking about. Let&#8217;s see if\nwe can clarify it.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Let me begin by trying to clarify for you what I think it is\nnot. Contentment, I believe, is not being stoic. Paul is not telling us to be\nstoic here. To be stoic is to so control your mind that suffering and pain no\nlonger come to your consciousness. Do you remember the stories of the Eastern\nmystics, who can sleep on a bed of nails, who can walk over a bed of hot coals\nand feel nothing, they have so suppressed their thought process about it?\nThat&#8217;s not what Paul was talking about here. He&#8217;s not calling us to be numb to\nsuffering. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Nor is Paul telling us we have to learn to like everything\nthat&#8217;s happening in our lives. I don&#8217;t think Paulwhen he sat in a prison cell\nfor two years chained to a guard when he&#8217;d rather be out preachingliked it\neither. During the past few months, I really don&#8217;t think God expects me to say,\n&#8220;I like having cancer.&#8221; And in this whole treatment process of the last weeks,\nI guess the hardest part of it all for me to handle was the incessant nausea\nfor five weeks straight. I don&#8217;t think God expects me to say I like that. I\ndon&#8217;t. And I don&#8217;t think he expects you to look at your burdens or your\ndifficulties or your problems and say, &#8220;I like that.&#8221; I get weary of a lot of\nthese  Christians around us who so glibly say (while they&#8217;re\nhealthy and you&#8217;re sick), &#8220;You have to praise God for all things.&#8221; I don&#8217;t\nthink Paul is saying that. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Nor, if we may carry it a step further, is he telling us that we\nmust settle for those things in our lives that are less than they ought to be.\nHe had a lot of incompletes and a lot of imperfections in his life, and Paul\nwas not saying, &#8220;Well, I&#8217;m just going to settle for that.&#8221; I remember days in\nmy life when I was in junior high and high school. I brought home some report\ncards that, wellthey weren&#8217;t so red hot. My parents wanted to talk about it,\nand I always defended myself by saying, &#8220;Well, look, it&#8217;s pretty well average.\nThat&#8217;s pretty good.&#8221; I thought that would calm the storm. And I tell you, the\nthought got across to me very, very clearly that contentment was a totally\ninappropriate response on my part to that report card! Paul says that. There\nwere things in his life to which Paul expressed a great deal of discontentment.\nHe said, &#8220;I press on; I have not yet achieved.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">As a matter of fact, the whole idea of Christian growth is built\non the idea of a holy kind of discontentment. There has to be a creative\ndiscontentment with that which is less than it ought to be in our lives. Those\nwho become good students are those who have in a healthy way become\ndiscontented with halfhearted  same with athletes, the same with\nmusicians, the same with your work in your trade. So Paul can&#8217;t be meaning\nthose things. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <strong>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Contentment\nis knowing you have all you need for your circumstances.<\/span>\n      <\/strong>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Then what does he mean? To understand what he means, look at\nanother passage in which he uses the same word we&#8217;re looking at. There are\nthree times in the New Testament when that word appears. All three are used by\nPaul. One is in 1 Timothy 6:6. We need not look at that because I think he uses\nthat in quite a different sense there. That&#8217;s the passage where he says &#8220;the\nlove of money is the root of evil.&#8221; He says, &#8220;Godliness with contentment is\ngreat gain.&#8221; There he uses that word to issue a warning against the craving to\nbe rich because it can well destroy your spiritual life.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">In 2 Corinthians 9:8, we find the third location in which he\nuses this word, though in our translations it is not translated by the word <em>contentment<\/em>.\nThis is a passage in which Paul is writing to the Corinthians about\n money and giving money generously. Verse 6 says, &#8220;Whoever sows\nsparingly will reap sparingly; whoever sows generously will reap generously.\nEach man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly\nor under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.&#8221; <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">At that point, Paul anticipates that his readers are going to\nsay, &#8220;Yeah, you can say that, but I can&#8217;t give much. I&#8217;ve got all these other\nobligations, and I&#8217;ll run out.&#8221; And then read verse 8: &#8220;And God is able to make\nall grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times,&#8221; here&#8217;s the word, &#8220;having\nall that you need&#8221;being content&#8221;you will abound in every good work.&#8221; You see\nwhat he&#8217;s saying with that word now; he&#8217;s saying, &#8220;As you give, expect that God\nis going to be giving, so you will always measure up to the responsibilities\nand obligations you have.&#8221; Contentment, he is saying, is knowing that you have\nall you need for the present circumstances. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Now with that in mind, go back to Philippians 4, and let&#8217;s look\nmore intently at what he says there. He&#8217;s been in prison in Rome about two\nyears, chained to guards, and notice what he says. He says, &#8220;There are times\nwhen I have been in need and times when I have plenty. There are times when I&#8217;m\n, times when I am hungry. I look back on my life, and I see times when\nI&#8217;ve been in plenty and times when I&#8217;m in want.&#8221; <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Now notice he did not say: &#8220;I liked being hungry. I liked being\nin want. I liked being in difficult circumstances.&#8221; He does not at all say\nthat. But what he&#8217;s saying is this: &#8220;Though I may not like it and would give my\nright eyetooth to get out of this prison and preach the gospel again, I know I\nhave from God what it&#8217;s going to take to measure up to these present\ncircumstances. I am sufficient.&#8221; Or perhaps we ought to word it, &#8220;In God I have\nbecome sufficient to this time of testing. God makes me sufficient.&#8221; That&#8217;s\nwhat you see him expressing in verse 13, and you must never therefore separate\n11 and 12 from 13: &#8220;I can do everything through him who gives me strength.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The last part of that verse, the &#8220;him who gives me strength,&#8221; is\nvery obviously a reference to Jesus Christ, and some translators will even put\nthe word <em>Christ<\/em> in there. He is saying, &#8220;Christ, who is within me, so\nthoroughly infuses his strength to me that no matter what the \nmatter what the I am sufficient to it. I can cope with it. I can\nhandle it. I can measure up to it.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Let me try to illustrate that from human life. Many of you know,\nperhaps, that nothing drives me mad more quickly than when my car won&#8217;t start.\nI can be patient with a lot of things, but when my car won&#8217;t run, you could\nprobably buy it from me for a nickel. If the key doesn&#8217;t do it, I haven&#8217;t the\nfoggiest idea where to go next. Therefore, when my car won&#8217;t run, I am\nextremely discontented. But why? Why am I so discontented? It&#8217;s very simple. I\ndon&#8217;t know where to go. I don&#8217;t know what to do. I don&#8217;t know how to begin\nfixing it. I don&#8217;t have the wherewithal to do the problem solving. I realize\nwhen mechanical abilities were passed out, I must have been busy doing something\nelse. I cannot cope with it. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">But, if one of my sons comes home with a catechism lesson or his\nschoolwork, I have a great deal of contentment then, because I&#8217;m confident I\ncan handle that material. Let them come home with a car that doesn&#8217;t run, and\nI&#8217;m stumped. In the one situation, I can cope with it; in the other situation,\nI cannot. The one situation I measure up to; the other situation I don&#8217;t. And\ntherefore, in the one situation I have contentment, and in the other I have\ndiscontentment. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">That&#8217;s the way Paul is using the word here: I am in a time of\ntesting, and in that time of testing, I am confident I can cope because God,\nthrough the strength of Christ, makes me sufficient. For Paul contentment meant\nsaying, &#8220;I don&#8217;t like being in this prison cell, but I know by Christ&#8217;s\nstrength I will measure up to this time in my life.&#8221; For me it means I don&#8217;t\nlike the idea of having surgery, I don&#8217;t like the idea of having cancer and\ntreatments and canceling a cherished sabbatical. But I know by the strength of\nChrist dwelling within me, I can cope with it. For you, whether it is a disease or a family problem or a difficult\nbusiness situation or any other personal problem, you may say, &#8220;I don&#8217;t like\nit, but I can cope with it because Christ by his strength makes me sufficient\nto measure up to it.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Contentment is taking your present situationwhatever obstacle\nyou are facing, whatever limitation you are living with, whatever chronic\ncondition wears you down, whatever has smashed your dreams, whatever factors and\ncircumstances in life tend to push you underand saying in the middle of it, &#8220;I\ndon&#8217;t like it,&#8221; but never saying, &#8220;I can&#8217;t cope with it.&#8221; You may feel\ndistress, but you may never feel despair. You may feel pressed down, but you\nmay never feel defeated. Paul says there are unlimited resources, and as soon\nas you say &#8220;I can&#8217;t cope,&#8221; you are failing to draw on these unlimited resources\nthat Christ has readily, by his , made available to you. Contentment, therefore, is being confident\nyou measure up to any test you are facing because of the resources of strength\nthat Christ has made available within you. That&#8217;s contentment. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <strong>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Contentment\ncomes through the resources God provides.<\/span>\n      <\/strong>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">But there is another question that that immediately precipitates:\n&#8220;How do I achieve that kind of contentment?&#8221; That question comes because we\nsense it is not natural for us to feel that way. I don&#8217;t believe it was natural\nfor Paul. Paul was a very gregarious, aggressive, active man, and I&#8217;m sure it\nwas intensely difficult for him to sit chained in a prison cell. He did not\ncome by it naturally. You sense that in those words in verse 12. He says, &#8220;I\nhave learned to be content.&#8221; <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">He tells you through those words (and the dynamic those words\ninvolve) that he did not wake up some fine morning and discover this fully\ndeveloped ability to be content had flown into his life. No. He said, &#8220;Life is\na school. It is a classroom. I&#8217;ve had to wrestle hard. And it is only through\nthe long process of living and wrestling with difficulties in life that I have\nfinally come to the point of realizing I have a corner on this matter of being\ncontent. It is a process, and I practice it all my days.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">That, as a matter of fact, may be one of the biggest reasons why\nGod allows these difficulties to come into our lives, because it&#8217;s through the\nprocess of wrestling with them down in the valley that we learn what this kind\nof contentment is all about. Look at those words now and notice that Paul tells\nus there are several very important ingredients involved in the achievement of\nthat contentment. The biggest ingredient, of course, is his personal union with\nJesus Christ. That&#8217;s what verse 13 is all about. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">That&#8217;s why I said you cannot separate 11 and 12 from verse 13.\nIf you do, you&#8217;re doing violence to the whole passage. His union with Christ,\nhis personal relationship with &#8220;the one who gives me strength&#8221; is the\nheartthrob of it all; that&#8217;s the key to it. Notice the precious balance in\nverse 13 between the <em>I<\/em> and the <em>him<\/em> I who can do everything\nand the him who gives me strength. Paul says. &#8220;I am in difficultydifficulties\nI don&#8217;t likebut I measure up to it because in those difficulties there are two\nof us.&#8221; This is not just some power of positive thinking based merely on\npsychological principles, though God knows we need that. This is a confidence\nof strength because of a union with Christ. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Paul is saying, therefore, it is an exclusive kind of\ncontentment that belongs only to Christians, those who are based squarely in\nJesus Christ. That&#8217;s what he was saying\nwhen he gave that powerful testimony to the Galatians in chapter 2: &#8220;I have\nbeen crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live. Yet not I, but Christ lives\nwithin me. And the life that I now live in the body I live by faith in Jesus,\nthe Son of God, who loves me and gave himself for me.&#8221; He&#8217;s saying that God,\nthrough Jesus Christ, is the source of our strength. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">That&#8217;s why I have said from time to time, &#8220;Don&#8217;t wait until you\nare in a valley to think about the depth of your relationship in Jesus Christ.&#8221;\nGod does not want to be a divine fire extinguisher you grab only when you get\nyourself into a jam. He wants to be the very lifeblood of our whole being, so\nthat when the valleys come, all of the resources are readily available to us.\nThat, he says, is the most important ingredient, the basis of it all: my\npersonal union with Jesus Christ. And I want to tell all of you, that if you\nare firmly grounded in Jesus Christ as your Savior and your Lord, there is no\nvalley you can&#8217;t cope with. But if you are a nominal Christian, only going\nthrough the motions, you&#8217;re going to get in a valley and you won&#8217;t have what it\ntakes. So you must know you are a child of God because you&#8217;ve been before the\ncross and you&#8217;ve given yourself to the Lord Jesus Christ, and this Jesus dwells\nwithin you and gives you his strength. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Paul says it all starts there. But we must go on in this passage\nand notice that he also says there are some other elements, a few other\ningredients, that are a great part of achieving this contentment. If you look\nback at verses 6 and 7, those precious,  verses, he says prayer is a\nbig part of it. Paul was a praying man. We hear him talking about his prayers a\nlot in his epistles. He says there are times in our lives that give us anxiety,\nand the answer is to pray: &#8220;By prayer and petition with thanksgiving presenting\nall of our requests to God.&#8221; Lay it all out there before God, and it is in\nresponse to those prayers that God makes his resources available to us, so that\nwe now are able with contentment to be confident. We can cope with the trial\nthat we are in instead of being crippled by the anxiety it produces. Prayer is\na very big part of it. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">In verse 8 he tells us thought control is also a very big part\nof it. It&#8217;s interesting that in the middle of this whole discussion while he&#8217;s\nin prison, he talks about thinking: &#8220;whatever is true, whatever is noble,\nwhatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable,\nif anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things.&#8221; Here was a\npreacher in prison. He could have had a lot of negative things to think about,\nbut he knew thinking about negative things wasn&#8217;t going to do him any good. It\nwould only drag him down all the farther and destroy his spirit. And so he\nsays, &#8220;You must be very careful whether your mind becomes enslaved by a\nnegative thought process or a positive thought process. When you are walking\nthrough your valleys, you don&#8217;t need to be drawn down any farther by your\nnegative thought processes. Whatever is praiseworthy and  of\nthose positive  must discipline yourself to control your thinking\nabout such things.&#8221; <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">And then he says there is another ingredient: the help of fellow\nChristians. Look how in verse 10 he says, &#8220;I rejoice greatly in the Lord that\nat last you have renewed your concern for me.&#8221; As a matter of fact, that\ngenerous concern on the part of the Philippians toward Paul seems to have been\nthe primary reason that stimulated the writing of this epistle in the first\nplace. He picks up again on that in verse 14: &#8220;It was good of you to share in\nmy troubles. Moreover, as you Philippians know, in the early days of your\nacquaintance with the gospel when I set out from Macedonia, not one church\nshared with me in the matter of giving and receiving except you only.&#8221; He is so\ngrateful for their generosity. They were the means that God used to infuse a\nlot of his strength into him. They were the channel God used to give him\nstrength. And that&#8217;s how it ought to be. God ministers to us through fellow\nChristians, powerfully. He wants his body to be that way. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\"> One of the best things\nwe&#8217;ve got going for us is the fact that we are brothers and sisters in Jesus.\nYou have tremendous opportunities to minister to one another. I hope you will\nalways avail yourselves of those opportunities. After the last few months in the valley I have walked through, I\nhave become increasingly more sensitive and aware of the fact that there is a\ntremendous amount of suffering of all kinds. There are a lot of hurting people\naround. We don&#8217;t look like it when we&#8217;re all dressed up in our nice Sunday\nfinery, but there&#8217;s a lot of hurt and there&#8217;s a lot of disappointment a lot of\npeople live with. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">My eyes have been increasingly opened to that. I find that an\noverwhelming thought, because with the press of all of my other duties, I can&#8217;t\nbegin to minister to all the needs and the hurts that exist in this\ncongregation in private lives and families. I can&#8217;t begin to. The only way all\nof the needs in lives and families are going to be met in this congregation,\nfor instance, is if every single one of I mean every one of  that\nwe may be increasingly sensitive about the needs in others lives and takes the\ninitiative and the responsibility. Paul says in verse 14 to share in their\ntroubles and become the means that God uses to infuse strength to them. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Well, my friends, as I see it, that&#8217;s what contentment is.\nContentment is the state of mind when you are in difficulty but you know Christ\nis within you and all of his resources are available to you. And you will, you\nwill measure up to it. You know what my\nneeds are now. What are your needs? What disease are you facing? What weakness\nwears you down? What chronic condition do you live with? What are the\ncircumstances in your work that drag you down? What are the smashed dreams you\nhave? What marriage and family problems are riddling your life with\nunhappiness? What burdens are you bearing privately? <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Whatever it isand there are a lot of themhere&#8217;s the message\nfor you: You don&#8217;t have to like it! You don&#8217;t have to like those circumstances,\nbut you may not give in to them. If you are a Christian, you can cope with it;\nyou can make the best of it. You can conquer it. You don&#8217;t have to live in a\nstate of anxiety and despair. Draw close to Jesus. Get just as close to Jesus\nas you possibly can. And close to him, all this strength of his will be made\navailable to you. No matter what the valley, no matter how deep it is, you can,\nyou can make the best of it. And you can grow through it. I hope every one of\nyou becomes that content. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <em>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Howard D.\nVanderwell was pastor of Hillcrest Christian Reformed Church in Hudsonville,\nMichigan, for many years. He was educated at Calvin College and Calvin\nSeminary.<\/span>\n      <\/em>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\"> Howard D. Vanderwell<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading is-style-article-subhead2\">\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"subhead\">Preaching Today Tape # 29<\/span>\n    <\/h2>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">\n        <a href=\"http:\/\/www.preachingtodaysermons.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">www.PreachingTodaySermons.com<\/a>\n      <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">A resource of Christianity Today\nInternational<\/span>\n    <\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[306],"tax_ctp_authors":[1746],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_field_guide_subcategory":[],"tax_ctp_field_guides":[],"tax_ctp_format":[170],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[412],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_sermon_series":[],"tax_ctp_tags":[3683,4614,4615,4755],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-33373","sermons","type-sermons","status-publish","hentry","tax_ctp_authors-howard-vanderwell","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-contentment","tax_ctp_tags-paul-the-apostle","tax_ctp_tags-peace","tax_ctp_tags-quietness"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Insights from the Valley - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/insights-from-valley\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Insights from the Valley - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Voices are being raised more and more that tell us our attitude, our state of mind, has a great effect on our health. Our attitude toward ourselves, our attitude toward life, our relationships with other people have a powerful effect on our physical life as well as our emotional life. 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