HH, Sir Godfrey Gregg D.Div
“And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.” Hosea 2:15
The Valley of Achor is the Valley of Trouble. But the Valley of Achor, when God is in it, becomes, the prophet Hosea says, the Door of Hope.
I pray that the sorrowful Valley may bring me the same experience.
It is the place where I see my sin in its true colours; all those plausible excuses I have been framing for myself, all those mirthful hues in which my imagination has painted my wicked sins, fade away. It is the place where I humble and hate myself for my defilement. It is the place where God’s chastisement falls upon me. Surely it is fitly named the Valley of Trouble.
Yet it may be the Door of Hope. For there God will say, Your sin is taken away, and your iniquity is pardoned. There He will recover me from my failures and falls. There He will make me strong in His strength, to do valiant battle for Him. Forgiven sin . . .
- breaks a man’s proud heart,
- opens a man’s closed lips,
- and quickens a man’s sluggard and dormant energies!
Nothing will constrain me, nothing will equip me, so effectually for the service of my Lord.
It is His great promise: “I will make the Valley of Achor, a Door of Hope!”
