Intimate contact with the sour truth is ineluctable as we make our escape through the Valley of Tears. How shall we deal with our intimate contacts with the sour truth in the Valley of Tears? What ought our policy be with regard to contact? What policies are suggested by the experts? What policy is suggested by our Church? What policy is suggested by our God?
We want God to eliminate the sour truth from the Valley of Tears or to extricate us from it. We want God to turn the Valley of Tears into a better, more hospitable place for godless people to live. To us, intimate contact with the sour truth is the very thing that makes our predicament in the Valley of Tears dire.
God is in agreement about turning the Valley of Tears into a better, more hospitable place. God wants to create the gardens of the new Eden in the Valley of Tears - to reverse the catastrophe of Adam and Eve - to undo the fall (Isaiah 61:4).
However, God won’t do it for us. He wants us to do it ourselves. God wants to turn godless people into People of God.
Moreover, in God’s eyes, the only way to accomplish the job is by filling our hearts to the brim with love so that, from our reservoirs of love, we can inundate the Valley of Tears with love as the Nile river inundates Egypt.
To jump start the process, God sent us his Son. Jesus was the seed of love that God planted in the soil of our hearts. Watch his gardens grow! He was the Love Note that God sent us to dilute the toxicity of the Valley of Tears in the same way that sugar cubes dilute the bitterness of a cup of bad coffee. He started the process. He did not complete it. He was the first drop (1 John 4:19) (John 10:27-30). Our mission is to turn the drop into a flood (Matthew 13:32) (Genesis 6:17)..
Our escape from the Valley of Tears is not a flight from its sour truth. Our escape is not avoiding the sour truth. Our escape is in embracing intimate contact with the sour truth with love. Love is toxic to evil. Love smothers evil as water smothers fire. The seeds of evil do not grow in the soil of love. Love is the “grease“ that lubricates the wheels of our passage through the Valley of Tears. Jesus brought the technology of applying love to suffering from heaven to earth. He hung from his cross to teach us how to hang from our crosses. He clung to his love for us, held tight and refused to let go even though we tortured and killed him. Therefore, hang as Jesus hung - cling as Jesus clung to love. Love is the medicine that stops the transmission of evil dead in its tracks. Jesus took the medicine and exposed himself to evil to show us that the medicine works, He donned the jetpack and flew to show us that we, too, can fly.
Therefore, it is time to reorganize our thinking to get on the same page as our God. Cognitive reorganization makes filling our hearts to the brim with love the priority. Nothing else matters. Everything else is secondary. Anything that interferes is suspect.