Arise, shine...
My parents have been church leaders for over 20 years. And for the past 13 years as part of the women’s ministry, my mother has hosted an annual Women’s Tea & Social event. Each year there is a different theme, topic, speakers, etc. I have traditionally been the host(ess). This year, though, I was asked to also give a reflection and I have been sitting with what I shared ever since. Some things are too full to leave in a single moment. This is one of them.
The theme from this year was “Rise Up,” drawn from Judges 5:7, the moment Deborah names her own arising as what finally moved a people who had all but given up . That word stayed with me. Rise. We use it freely in common sayings and positive affirmations: “Rise and Shine,” “On the rise,” “Rise above it,” “Rise to the occasion,” “Rise from the ashes.” But I think we may be more comfortable with the word than we are with what it actually asks of us.
Rise moves in two directions in Scripture. And we tend to live almost entirely in one of them. Most of us know what it feels like when you have done everything you know to do and the situation has not shifted. When you start asking questions like God, did I miss something? What are You doing? Where are You?
There is a word for that kind of season. The Bible calls it a valley. A valley in Scripture is simply low ground. It is a place of reduced visibility, reduced momentum, and at times, loss.
Psalm 23 says: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.” The valley is not the destination. It is the terrain. You walk through it, not into it. But while you are in it, the walls are high enough that you cannot always see what is on the other side, and the path forward is not always clear. I know this terrain. I am in it.
Ezekiel 37 puts you in a valley full of dry bones, a place that looks like the end of something that cannot be recovered. And God asks a question before anything happens: ‘Can these bones live?’ The valley in Ezekiel is not a burial ground though. It is a setting for resurrection. But only after Ezekiel obeys and speaks into it.
And in Isaiah 40:4, valleys are lifted. The low ground gets raised. The valley itself is transformed.
The thread across all of it is that the valley is a place that God is fully present in and the context for something He is doing.
It’s in this place, the valley, when life presses in and our options run out, that we can struggle to see God or feel His presence. And so we reflexively turn our eyes upward and plead with God to move. God, intervene. God, step in. God, do something about this because I have done everything I know to do and nothing has changed.
David gives it language across the Psalms:
“Rise up, LORD! Save me, my God.” (Psalm 3:7, CSB)
“Rise up, LORD! Do not let mere humans prevail.” (Psalm 9:19a, CSB)
“Rise up, LORD God! Lift up your hand.” (Psalm 10:12, CSB)
These are cries from someone who needed God to move into something they could not face on their own. That prayer is ancient. And it is still being prayed. But if we read only the Psalms, we miss what the rest of Scripture shows— that God also calls people to rise.
Deborah’s own account in Judges 5 makes this plain. Village life had ceased. The roads were abandoned. People had retreated from ordinary life under the weight of what felt too dangerous to move through. And the Bible does not say God removed the threat first and then the people found their footing. It says nothing moved, not one thing, until she arose. God raised someone up into the difficulty rather than clearing the difficulty beforehand. That is a different kind of answer than we usually expect when we are the ones crying out.
Which means we may need to reconsider what rising actually looks like.
We tend to picture it as a breakthrough moment. We want something visible, bold, and unmistakable. Some kind of dramatic shift. The thing that happens after the hard season finally breaks open and everyone can see that something has changed. And sometimes it is that. But that is not the only shape rising takes in Scripture, and it is rarely the first shape it takes in our lives.
Think about how yeast works. You cannot see it moving. There is no visible evidence in the early stages that anything is happening at all. But beneath the surface, something is actively transforming the thing it was placed inside. The rising is real before it is visible. The work is already underway before anyone can confirm it from the outside.
That is often what obedience looks like in an unresolved season.
Rising can look like staying when everything in you wants to leave. It can look like preparing for something God has not yet made plain. It can look like internal alignment, a reorientation of where you have placed your trust, that produces no immediate external evidence but is shifting something nonetheless. It can look like endurance, which from the outside is nearly indistinguishable from standing still but is one of the most active postures of faith there is.
“Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord shines over you.” Isaiah 60:1.
The sequence of that statement is key. Read it again slowly. The arising does not generate the light. The light has already arrived, and the arising is the response to it. God is not asking you to produce something out of nothing. He is not asking you to manufacture courage you do not have or momentum you cannot feel. He is asking you to respond to what He has already released.
In times of waiting, we tend to question whether God is moving. But the real question is whether we are willing to rise before the environment catches up. Because waiting, for the believer, is not passive. It is not absence of movement. It sometimes takes a decision to rise into what God has already spoken over a season that does not yet look like what He promised. It is Deborah arising before the battle was won. It is the yeast working before anyone can see the bread.
And the rising matters beyond ourselves. What God saves us from is never the end of the story. Salvation is not only rescue, it is commissioning. Ephesians 2:10 says: “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” We are not just evidence that God saves. We are evidence that God sends. And what He sends us into almost always includes someone else. Another woman in a waiting season who needs to see that faithfulness without clarity is possible. Someone else watching to find out whether hope can hold when all looks lost.
I am currently making my way through a valley. But I am not the same person I was when it started. And maybe that is the point. God did not first fix my circumstances and then call me to rise. The valley has been an invitation from the Lord to rise first.
You do not have to have it all figured out to rise. The light has already come. That is the reason rising is even possible. And the God who calls you to rise is the same God who goes before you into everything the rising leads toward.
Reflect. Write. Pray. Return.
Reflect
Where have you been waiting for circumstances to change before you allow yourself to move? What might God already be saying to you that you have not yet risen to respond to?
When you think about what rising looks like in your current season — not the dramatic version, but the real one — what do you see?
Write
Name the posture God may be inviting you into right now. Not the outcome you are waiting for, the posture. How can you be faithful in this season?
Pray
Lord God, thank You for Your presence that is always with me. I may not like where I am yet I am grateful that I am not alone. Your Spirit continues to lead, guide, comfort, and protect me. Thank You, Lord. Forgive me for the times I have taken that for granted and ignored what You have called me to do. I admit I have been scared and worried about how things are gonna work out. Help me Jesus to rise up right where I am, despite where I am so that I can be an example of faith, obedience, and endurance for someone who may be watching. In Your name, I pray. Amen.
Return
This week, when the uncertainty of your situation, circumstance, etc. tempts you to stay still and wait for proof before you move, ask the Holy Spirit to step in and remind you of what God has already said. Then ask Him to help you take the next step, however small that may be.
Praise God thank you for sharing your story with us and your journey blessings
Praise God and Amen! I Thank God He is the Lily in the valley!!!