Valleys are cool. California's valleys are really cool; who wouldn't want to visit Napa or Yosemite valleys? Valleys have always been prized for their agricultural riches. The Loire Valley in France is a veritable Garden of Eden. The Great Rift Valley in East Africa has some of the deepest lakes on earth and home of famous Lake Victoria and Lake Tanganyika. But valleys have a bloody hue as many famous battles have been decided on its plains. David made the Valley of Elah shake after Goliath did a face plant there. In the poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade," Tennyson made the Crimean War battlefield famous honoring the charge saying; "Half a league, half a league, half a league onward; all in the valley of death rode the six hundred." Lord Alfred may have been reprising the famous verse from Psalm 23 which says, "Though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death…" Prophetically, Armageddon will be near the valley of Megiddo in Palestine. Oswald Chambers (Utmost for His Highest) reminds us not to tarry on the mountaintop. Those invigorating vistas allow us to return and serve in the valley where the battles are waged and vineyards need tending.
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