Valley Variation
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“Valley Variation” by David O. Bales
“How It All Started” by David O. Bales
Valley Variation
by David O. Bales
Psalm 23
Pastor Trevin realized after three years in ministry that when he called on new people, he became nervous and talked too much about the church and himself. Through the advice of a fellow pastor, he reined in his runaway anxiety by having a pocket full of questions to ask people when he met them for the first time. His favorite with couples (although not the first he asked) was “How did you meet?” and if that was a success, he could ask, “What was your first date like?”
The questions not only broke the ice, he enjoyed hearing about people being attracted to each other; and they usually liked telling him. But when he called on Ryan and Deanna—who’d worshipped in the congregation for the first time on Sunday—nothing he said, did, asked, or suggested generated any sparks in the conversation. Even his question, “how did you meet?” brought a ho-hum response that they’d worked together in Walmart for a year, didn’t date others, and never considered the other as an interesting person. They admitted with nearly blank expressions that they basically got together for dinner and a movie just to have some practice in dating, no real expectations.
Pastor Trevin in desperation pulled out his last resort: “What was your first date like?” He thought it was sure fire, because he’d heard a long line of interesting answers: Got in a car wreck, dyed their hair, visited grandparents, dove into a swimming pool with their clothes on, started writing a novel, strung toilet paper on their algebra teacher’s hedge, fell asleep in a play, picked strawberries, broke up a bar fight.
Ryan and Deanna stated flatly, “Dinner and a movie.” Trevin felt like he’d ordered a cream puff and was served iron filings. “Uh,” he said, “good movie?”
“Not really,” Ryan said.
“Not at all,” Deanna said.
“Obviously,” Trevin said, shifting on the sofa, “the date went well enough you got together again.” He decided to go for the center of their relationship, “So, why did you?”
Deanna looked at Ryan like she was confirming it was okay. She said, “We shared our dreams.”
“Makes sense,” Trevin said, “you’re young and planning for the future.”
“No,” Ryan said, “we shared our real dreams. Each of us, for some reason. Maybe we were searching for something to talk about, just started telling the other what we dreamed the night before.”
“Then we went on relating our usual dreams,” Deanna said, “and some of our worst nightmares. Still do. Every morning.”
“It’s become the center of our marriage,” Ryan said and laughed. “After three years we can’t do without it.”
“When Ryan’s out of town,” Deanna chuckled and said, “he can usually phone in the morning and we share while we still remember what swirled around in our heads during the night.”
Trevin was intrigued when Ryan stated, “It’s a part of our faith.”
Trevin had never heard such a thing. He tipped his head to the side in a question. Deanna was eager to continue, “We’ve worked out a lot, just by listening to ourselves. I don’t mean a selfish kind of thing, but a little like therapy, and definitely as a way to trust God.”
“That’s very interesting,” Trevin said. “Something specific?”
They glanced to one another again and Deanna said, “By our listening to some constant pictures and themes in my dreams, it’s how I came to faith.”
Trevin leaned toward her. She said, “Over the years—and Ryan doesn’t mind my saying this—Ryan’s dreams are pretty pedestrian. Certainly, more Disneyland than Jurassic Park: Day before rehashed, worries about tomorrow previewed, old friends, old jobs, old sports. Only a few shocking flashes through the brain. He goes months without a dream stabbing him. Right Ryan?”
“Pretty well on the nose. I don’t mind. My dreams seldom bother me. They entertain me. Yet, they don’t offer much challenge or direction. Not the same with Deanna. She flies and dives, dances and dies in her dreams; and, by telling her dreams to me, she takes me with her. We travel together. Haven’t said this to others.”
“I’m pleased you’d share that with me,” Trevin said, which was a go-ahead for Deanna.
“Even that first night when we sat chatting after the movie, I mentioned the dream that recurred the most—and bothered me most.” Deanna began speaking as though reliving the dream, “It’s messy and dark. Ryan’s dreams are bright and splashy. Mine’s in the shadows. In this one, always a spray of darkness looming over me. A month would flow by smoothly and then the dream leaped out to grab my mind.” She clenched her hands together. “I’m going somewhere important, but without really understanding direction or goal. Always narrower, and the darkness growing against me like I’m being squeezed into a tunnel. Yet, I always feel a presence and I ask, ‘Who’s there?’ The way’s constantly more and more cramped, sides pressing in. I have to step onto a slant on the right, then onto a slant on the left to stay upright in the textured darkness. But always, whoever is with me is friendly. Out there beyond me is a benevolent somebody … something that cares about me and what I’m passing through. I don’t know who.”
She stopped and breathed deeply. Trevin’s chest was tight for having followed along in her dream, “That’s pretty heavy to dump on your first date!”
The couple laughed with him. Then the three sat quietly for a few moments. Deanna said in a soft voice, “We shared that dream, in all its variations, through our courtship, engagement, and marriage. We weren’t worshipping then. Didn’t think much about faith. Every few days we fiddled with what it meant, if it meant anything. Then Ryan’s great aunt died, and we went to the funeral. A year ago, a year March 22. At the cemetery the pastor read the Twenty-Third Psalm and when he said, ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me,’ I turned to Ryan and we both understood. We wanted to leap, laugh and scream at the same time. After the service, we could hardly speak to anyone. We were overwhelmed. We knew, both of us, deep within us: God was accompanying me through the valley of the shadow of death.”
“Might not mean that to anyone else,” Ryan said, “but when Deanna’s dream intersected with the Psalm, we instantly decoded what God had been saying to her.”
Deanna’s face almost shined. “I never experienced that dream again. We finally understood what God was telling me.”
The three looked back and forth to one another for a moment, then they laughed and cried with joy; because they trusted that Deanna’s was a strange journey, but God’s goodness and mercy would follow her all the days of her life.
Preaching point: God’s caring presence through life’s dangerous valleys.
* * *
How It All Started
by David O. Bales
1 Samuel 16:1-13
Every evening King David’s three oldest brothers gathered in Jerusalem’s inn for wine with other retired soldiers. Tonight, they met after news arrived to David’s city announcing another great victory over the Philistines. Soon David would return with the Hebrew army in glory. The brothers and their friends, too injured or enfeebled now for combat, stretched out their evening repeating stories of the battles of old they’d fought in.
Joah joined them in drinking at their table. He was newly handicapped from the Hebrew army and trying to learn how to walk with a staff and half of his left foot gone. He appreciated the effects of the wine numbing his battle aches. David’s brothers spun their tales of bravery and sacrifice in King Saul’s service and how they then followed David until he was acknowledged as king. Joah asked, “Were you at that famous the cliff battle where the slaughter followed down past that little spring?” They all nodded. “But,” Eliab said, “that was service under Saul. David was nowhere on the scene yet.” Joah set down his cup, wiped the drip off his chin with the back of his hand, and said. “I’ve always wondered: How in this Lord’s world did your youngest brother take Saul’s place and end up as Israel’s king?”
“Wellll,” Eliab said with a wine enhanced drawl, “started right after the barley harvest. Grandfather Obed always managed to arrive during the barley winnowing. You want to hear a story, you just turned Grandfather Obed loose. Loved to tell how his parents met and every year it got more elaborate until it wasn’t just a matter of one family in Bethlehem, but nearly an international affair—involving Moab too.”
“Wasn’t the barley harvest,” Abinadab said. “Wheat harvest. I’ve told you before. And Grandfather wasn’t there. He’d been dead four years. I think time’s either rotting your memory or the wine is ruining it.”
“Barley harvest,” Eliab said and banged his hand on the table.
Abinadab took a deep breath, “Say what you like, as many times as you can. Won’t change when it really happened. Wheat harvest.”
Eliab rubbed a hand on his forehead scar and stuck out his lower lip, “Barley.”
Joah looked back and forth between the brothers, enjoying their dispute.
Shammah sat farthest from his older brothers who argued at the end of the table. He caught Joah’s eye and said, “Starts with the prophet Samuel arriving in Bethlehem. Scares the gizzards out of everybody. Young fellow runs out to where we’re working and announces ‘Samuel’s come to Bethlehem dragging a heifer on a rope. And a horn of oil.’ Couldn’t scare us more if a thousand Philistine warriors crested the next hill unopposed. What’s the Lord’s prophet doing here? He’s the guy who will grab a sword and whack you to pieces. We start asking, what have we done? Worse maybe, what haven’t we done? Especially, what’s he going to pronounce or do?”
With Joah listening to Shammah, Eliab grumbled a little more, took another drink, and stopped bickering with Abinadab.
“All we’d heard about Samuel lately was that he’s peeved with Saul and holed up in Ramah. But he must be here for something major. We wonder if he’s mustering troops from the south for another foray against the Philistines. But all he says is he’s come for an impromptu worship, even bringing the sacrifice.
“He gets our family off to the side. Awkward as can be. Villagers all gawking at us. Starts fiddling around in his funny way of praying and says we’re now ‘sanctified.’ We look at one another in question, but don’t say a word to him. You ever around Samuel?” he asks Joah.
“Never saw him.”
“Let me tell you, no matter who else is around, when he’s present, he’s in charge of everything. We haven’t the slightest idea what he’s doing. Makes us boys parade before him, like he’s sizing us up to send us into battle. Stares at us, working his way down the line of us. Expectant with each of us and then frustrated. I can tell he’s let down when he passes me up. Makes me feel like a failure. Talk about a mix-up of thoughts and feelings.”
Eliab yells for a servant to bring more wine; but, when the servant comes, he looks first to Abinadab who smiles and waves him away from Eliab.
“Obviously none of us meets his standards,” Shammah said, “and he asks if Father has more sons. More! He has more sons than any father in Bethlehem and Samuel wants more! So, Father tells him. ‘The youngest, but he’s tending the sheep.’ Samuel won’t settle for anything less than a full lineup of all the family’s males and we have to stand around waiting while a servant lights out to see if the flock’s in the same place today as yesterday.
“Soon the kid comes trotting in from the field wondering what’s going on. He’s a cute little guy. You can catch the contrast between the tall Saul and the short David. So … so, Samuel goes from looking as though he’s going to vomit to acting like he’s been reprieved from a death sentence. Takes out his horn of oil, puts some on David’s head, then drops everything and he’s out of here without an extra breath. David too. He takes a little jump and runs back to the sheep.”
“Fortunately,” Abinadab said, “none had wandered off while he’d been away.”
“Samuel departs,” Shammah said. “David’s back to the flock. We’re left standing there, like the party’s over and we missed it. We couldn’t be more confused if the moon landed on our housetop. We don’t know what’s happening and can’t guess what might come of it—for the whole family.” He wagged his head slowly with wonder on his face. “Or for the nation.”
“Or the world,” Eliab said. But by that time, he was nearly asleep with his head on the table and no one listened to him.
Preaching point: Momentous royal selection process.
*****************************************
StoryShare, March 22, 2020, issue.
Copyright 2020 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
“Valley Variation” by David O. Bales
“How It All Started” by David O. Bales
Valley Variation
by David O. Bales
Psalm 23
Pastor Trevin realized after three years in ministry that when he called on new people, he became nervous and talked too much about the church and himself. Through the advice of a fellow pastor, he reined in his runaway anxiety by having a pocket full of questions to ask people when he met them for the first time. His favorite with couples (although not the first he asked) was “How did you meet?” and if that was a success, he could ask, “What was your first date like?”
The questions not only broke the ice, he enjoyed hearing about people being attracted to each other; and they usually liked telling him. But when he called on Ryan and Deanna—who’d worshipped in the congregation for the first time on Sunday—nothing he said, did, asked, or suggested generated any sparks in the conversation. Even his question, “how did you meet?” brought a ho-hum response that they’d worked together in Walmart for a year, didn’t date others, and never considered the other as an interesting person. They admitted with nearly blank expressions that they basically got together for dinner and a movie just to have some practice in dating, no real expectations.
Pastor Trevin in desperation pulled out his last resort: “What was your first date like?” He thought it was sure fire, because he’d heard a long line of interesting answers: Got in a car wreck, dyed their hair, visited grandparents, dove into a swimming pool with their clothes on, started writing a novel, strung toilet paper on their algebra teacher’s hedge, fell asleep in a play, picked strawberries, broke up a bar fight.
Ryan and Deanna stated flatly, “Dinner and a movie.” Trevin felt like he’d ordered a cream puff and was served iron filings. “Uh,” he said, “good movie?”
“Not really,” Ryan said.
“Not at all,” Deanna said.
“Obviously,” Trevin said, shifting on the sofa, “the date went well enough you got together again.” He decided to go for the center of their relationship, “So, why did you?”
Deanna looked at Ryan like she was confirming it was okay. She said, “We shared our dreams.”
“Makes sense,” Trevin said, “you’re young and planning for the future.”
“No,” Ryan said, “we shared our real dreams. Each of us, for some reason. Maybe we were searching for something to talk about, just started telling the other what we dreamed the night before.”
“Then we went on relating our usual dreams,” Deanna said, “and some of our worst nightmares. Still do. Every morning.”
“It’s become the center of our marriage,” Ryan said and laughed. “After three years we can’t do without it.”
“When Ryan’s out of town,” Deanna chuckled and said, “he can usually phone in the morning and we share while we still remember what swirled around in our heads during the night.”
Trevin was intrigued when Ryan stated, “It’s a part of our faith.”
Trevin had never heard such a thing. He tipped his head to the side in a question. Deanna was eager to continue, “We’ve worked out a lot, just by listening to ourselves. I don’t mean a selfish kind of thing, but a little like therapy, and definitely as a way to trust God.”
“That’s very interesting,” Trevin said. “Something specific?”
They glanced to one another again and Deanna said, “By our listening to some constant pictures and themes in my dreams, it’s how I came to faith.”
Trevin leaned toward her. She said, “Over the years—and Ryan doesn’t mind my saying this—Ryan’s dreams are pretty pedestrian. Certainly, more Disneyland than Jurassic Park: Day before rehashed, worries about tomorrow previewed, old friends, old jobs, old sports. Only a few shocking flashes through the brain. He goes months without a dream stabbing him. Right Ryan?”
“Pretty well on the nose. I don’t mind. My dreams seldom bother me. They entertain me. Yet, they don’t offer much challenge or direction. Not the same with Deanna. She flies and dives, dances and dies in her dreams; and, by telling her dreams to me, she takes me with her. We travel together. Haven’t said this to others.”
“I’m pleased you’d share that with me,” Trevin said, which was a go-ahead for Deanna.
“Even that first night when we sat chatting after the movie, I mentioned the dream that recurred the most—and bothered me most.” Deanna began speaking as though reliving the dream, “It’s messy and dark. Ryan’s dreams are bright and splashy. Mine’s in the shadows. In this one, always a spray of darkness looming over me. A month would flow by smoothly and then the dream leaped out to grab my mind.” She clenched her hands together. “I’m going somewhere important, but without really understanding direction or goal. Always narrower, and the darkness growing against me like I’m being squeezed into a tunnel. Yet, I always feel a presence and I ask, ‘Who’s there?’ The way’s constantly more and more cramped, sides pressing in. I have to step onto a slant on the right, then onto a slant on the left to stay upright in the textured darkness. But always, whoever is with me is friendly. Out there beyond me is a benevolent somebody … something that cares about me and what I’m passing through. I don’t know who.”
She stopped and breathed deeply. Trevin’s chest was tight for having followed along in her dream, “That’s pretty heavy to dump on your first date!”
The couple laughed with him. Then the three sat quietly for a few moments. Deanna said in a soft voice, “We shared that dream, in all its variations, through our courtship, engagement, and marriage. We weren’t worshipping then. Didn’t think much about faith. Every few days we fiddled with what it meant, if it meant anything. Then Ryan’s great aunt died, and we went to the funeral. A year ago, a year March 22. At the cemetery the pastor read the Twenty-Third Psalm and when he said, ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me,’ I turned to Ryan and we both understood. We wanted to leap, laugh and scream at the same time. After the service, we could hardly speak to anyone. We were overwhelmed. We knew, both of us, deep within us: God was accompanying me through the valley of the shadow of death.”
“Might not mean that to anyone else,” Ryan said, “but when Deanna’s dream intersected with the Psalm, we instantly decoded what God had been saying to her.”
Deanna’s face almost shined. “I never experienced that dream again. We finally understood what God was telling me.”
The three looked back and forth to one another for a moment, then they laughed and cried with joy; because they trusted that Deanna’s was a strange journey, but God’s goodness and mercy would follow her all the days of her life.
Preaching point: God’s caring presence through life’s dangerous valleys.
* * *
How It All Started
by David O. Bales
1 Samuel 16:1-13
Every evening King David’s three oldest brothers gathered in Jerusalem’s inn for wine with other retired soldiers. Tonight, they met after news arrived to David’s city announcing another great victory over the Philistines. Soon David would return with the Hebrew army in glory. The brothers and their friends, too injured or enfeebled now for combat, stretched out their evening repeating stories of the battles of old they’d fought in.
Joah joined them in drinking at their table. He was newly handicapped from the Hebrew army and trying to learn how to walk with a staff and half of his left foot gone. He appreciated the effects of the wine numbing his battle aches. David’s brothers spun their tales of bravery and sacrifice in King Saul’s service and how they then followed David until he was acknowledged as king. Joah asked, “Were you at that famous the cliff battle where the slaughter followed down past that little spring?” They all nodded. “But,” Eliab said, “that was service under Saul. David was nowhere on the scene yet.” Joah set down his cup, wiped the drip off his chin with the back of his hand, and said. “I’ve always wondered: How in this Lord’s world did your youngest brother take Saul’s place and end up as Israel’s king?”
“Wellll,” Eliab said with a wine enhanced drawl, “started right after the barley harvest. Grandfather Obed always managed to arrive during the barley winnowing. You want to hear a story, you just turned Grandfather Obed loose. Loved to tell how his parents met and every year it got more elaborate until it wasn’t just a matter of one family in Bethlehem, but nearly an international affair—involving Moab too.”
“Wasn’t the barley harvest,” Abinadab said. “Wheat harvest. I’ve told you before. And Grandfather wasn’t there. He’d been dead four years. I think time’s either rotting your memory or the wine is ruining it.”
“Barley harvest,” Eliab said and banged his hand on the table.
Abinadab took a deep breath, “Say what you like, as many times as you can. Won’t change when it really happened. Wheat harvest.”
Eliab rubbed a hand on his forehead scar and stuck out his lower lip, “Barley.”
Joah looked back and forth between the brothers, enjoying their dispute.
Shammah sat farthest from his older brothers who argued at the end of the table. He caught Joah’s eye and said, “Starts with the prophet Samuel arriving in Bethlehem. Scares the gizzards out of everybody. Young fellow runs out to where we’re working and announces ‘Samuel’s come to Bethlehem dragging a heifer on a rope. And a horn of oil.’ Couldn’t scare us more if a thousand Philistine warriors crested the next hill unopposed. What’s the Lord’s prophet doing here? He’s the guy who will grab a sword and whack you to pieces. We start asking, what have we done? Worse maybe, what haven’t we done? Especially, what’s he going to pronounce or do?”
With Joah listening to Shammah, Eliab grumbled a little more, took another drink, and stopped bickering with Abinadab.
“All we’d heard about Samuel lately was that he’s peeved with Saul and holed up in Ramah. But he must be here for something major. We wonder if he’s mustering troops from the south for another foray against the Philistines. But all he says is he’s come for an impromptu worship, even bringing the sacrifice.
“He gets our family off to the side. Awkward as can be. Villagers all gawking at us. Starts fiddling around in his funny way of praying and says we’re now ‘sanctified.’ We look at one another in question, but don’t say a word to him. You ever around Samuel?” he asks Joah.
“Never saw him.”
“Let me tell you, no matter who else is around, when he’s present, he’s in charge of everything. We haven’t the slightest idea what he’s doing. Makes us boys parade before him, like he’s sizing us up to send us into battle. Stares at us, working his way down the line of us. Expectant with each of us and then frustrated. I can tell he’s let down when he passes me up. Makes me feel like a failure. Talk about a mix-up of thoughts and feelings.”
Eliab yells for a servant to bring more wine; but, when the servant comes, he looks first to Abinadab who smiles and waves him away from Eliab.
“Obviously none of us meets his standards,” Shammah said, “and he asks if Father has more sons. More! He has more sons than any father in Bethlehem and Samuel wants more! So, Father tells him. ‘The youngest, but he’s tending the sheep.’ Samuel won’t settle for anything less than a full lineup of all the family’s males and we have to stand around waiting while a servant lights out to see if the flock’s in the same place today as yesterday.
“Soon the kid comes trotting in from the field wondering what’s going on. He’s a cute little guy. You can catch the contrast between the tall Saul and the short David. So … so, Samuel goes from looking as though he’s going to vomit to acting like he’s been reprieved from a death sentence. Takes out his horn of oil, puts some on David’s head, then drops everything and he’s out of here without an extra breath. David too. He takes a little jump and runs back to the sheep.”
“Fortunately,” Abinadab said, “none had wandered off while he’d been away.”
“Samuel departs,” Shammah said. “David’s back to the flock. We’re left standing there, like the party’s over and we missed it. We couldn’t be more confused if the moon landed on our housetop. We don’t know what’s happening and can’t guess what might come of it—for the whole family.” He wagged his head slowly with wonder on his face. “Or for the nation.”
“Or the world,” Eliab said. But by that time, he was nearly asleep with his head on the table and no one listened to him.
Preaching point: Momentous royal selection process.
*****************************************
StoryShare, March 22, 2020, issue.
Copyright 2020 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
