The Valley Before the Mountain: God's Process of Preparation

This article was inspired by a sermon delivered by Pastor Andy Moore from Coastline Church, Canada, to the congregation at Watoto Church, Kampala, Uganda. I encountered this inspiring message about 1 Kings 17 and 18 during a morning walk through the beautiful trail adjacent to Port Mercer and the Bridge Tender House in Princeton.

We measure spiritual growth by visible outcomes in our fast-paced, results-driven world. We want to see the fruits of our faith work immediately—the answered prayers, the ministry successes, the personal breakthroughs. Yet throughout Scripture, we find a consistent pattern: before God produces fruit through His servants, He first leads them through a season of preparation. This divine process often involves waiting, isolation, and even apparent setbacks—a journey through the valley before ascending the mountain.

Elijah at the Brook Cherith: The Formation of a Prophet
Few biblical narratives illustrate this principle more vividly than the story of Elijah in 1 Kings 17-18. Before his dramatic confrontation with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel—before his public vindication as God's prophet—Elijah first experienced a season of divine hiding.
After declaring to King Ahab that a drought would come upon the land, God instructed Elijah: "Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan. You will drink from the brook, and I have directed the ravens to supply you with food there" (1 Kings 17:3-4).

Consider what this meant for Elijah. This wasn't a triumphant ministry launch but a retreat into obscurity. The prophet wasn't sent to the palace or the temple but to a desolate ravine. His providers weren't wealthy patrons but ravens—ritually unclean birds bringing him bread and meat. His water source wasn't secure, but a brook that would eventually dry up as the drought continued.
What purpose could this isolation serve? At Cherith, Elijah learned complete dependence on God's provision. Each day, as ravens brought his food, he experienced God's faithfulness in the most unlikely of circumstances. The drying brook taught him to hold God's gifts loosely, understanding that the Provider is more important than the provision.

When the brook finally dried up, God sent Elijah to Zarephath to be sustained by a widow with only a handful of flour and a little olive oil. Again, God's chosen instrument for provision seemed woefully inadequate by human standards. Yet this widow's flour and oil never ran out, teaching Elijah that God's resources are inexhaustible even when they appear limited.
Only after these formative experiences—after Elijah had learned to trust God's timing, provision, and power in private—was he ready for the public showdown on Mount Carmel where he would call down fire from heaven.

The Bottom of the U: Presencing and Holy Waiting
This pattern of divine preparation finds a fascinating parallel in contemporary thought through Otto Scharmer's Theory U. Scharmer, a senior lecturer at MIT, describes a U-shaped transformation journey that leaders and organizations must undergo to access their highest future potential.
The descent into the bottom of the U—what Scharmer calls "presencing"—involves letting go of old patterns and preconceptions and opening oneself to emerging possibilities. It is a place of surrender and deep listening, where we connect to our authentic purpose and to the future that wants to emerge through us.

For Christians, this "bottom of the U" experience often appears as a wilderness season—a time when visible progress seems halted, we feel disconnected from our usual support systems, and God seems mysteriously silent. Yet it is precisely in this space of apparent nothingness that God does His deepest work.

As Richard Rohr writes in "Falling Upward": "In the silence and stillness, we are being remodeled, reshaped, and reconceived by the same forces that confuse and confound us. Our falling becomes our greatest moment of truth, which we later recognize as a beautiful falling into the arms of God."
The bottom of the U isn't just empty waiting—it is active presencing, attentive listening for the still, small voice Elijah would later hear on Mount Horeb. It's a posture that says, "Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening" (1 Samuel 3:10). It's the faith to believe that when visible progress has stalled, unseen roots are growing deeper.

Seasons of the Spirit: Discerning God's Timing
The spiritual life unfolds in seasons, each with its purpose and character. Ecclesiastes 3:1 reminds us: "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens." Discerning which season we are in becomes crucial to cooperating with God's work.
Spiritual formation expert Ruth Haley Barton observes: "Discernment is not a matter of simply figuring out how to get divine input for decisions we need to make but of developing receptivity to God's guidance throughout our lives. Discernment is an ever-increasing capacity to 'see' the work of God during the human situation so that we can align ourselves with whatever God is doing."

Sometimes, like Elijah at Cherith, we are in a season of being hidden—of learning dependence and receiving provision. Other times, like Elijah at Mount Carmel, we are called to public witness and bold action. Both seasons are equally valuable in God's economy, though our achievement-oriented culture tends to value only the latter.

A.W. Tozer captures this truth eloquently: "It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until He has hurt him deeply." This divine hurting isn't punishment but preparation—a loving sculptor removing everything that doesn't look like the masterpiece He envisions.
From Doubt to Distinction: A Personal Journey of Preparation

My own journey through the valley came during my time at the New York Army National Guard Empire State Military Academy. The challenge of the Academy's rigorous demands was difficult enough. Still, when a senior officer publicly declared before my peers, "There is no way you are going to graduate as an officer," something in me broke.

In that moment of humiliation and doubt, I faced a critical choice: believe the limiting voice or trust the One who had called me. I left the premises of the New York Army National Guard in Rochester, New York that day, and parked on the side of the New York Thruway, to sob. I thank God for His presence, assurance that this season of difficulty was preparation, not punishment.
The months that followed were grueling. Every assignment, training exercise, and evaluation seemed designed to prove that the officer was right. Yet in this valley, I discovered resources I didn't know I had—or rather, I discovered the God who had those resources ready to provide exactly when needed.

Like Elijah by the drying brook, I learned that when human assessment says "impossible," God specializes in doing the impossible. Like the prophet waiting for ravens to bring his daily bread, I learned to look for divine provision in unexpected places: a fellow cadet offering help with a difficult subject, a comforting word at the right moment, and a passage of Scripture suddenly illuminated with new meaning.

When graduation day arrived, and I stood recognized as the Academic Honor Graduate of my class, I understood that the achievement itself wasn't the point. The point was who I had become through the process—someone who had experienced firsthand that "the one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it" (1 Thessalonians 5:24).

Moving Forward: Sensitivity to the Spirit's Leading
What season are you in right now? Are you at Cherith, where the brook is drying up? Are you at Zarephath, where resources seem limited? Are you preparing for your Mount Carmel moment of public ministry? Or perhaps you're in the aftermath of victory, like Elijah under the broom tree, dealing with exhaustion and wondering what comes next.

Wherever you find yourself, the invitation remains the same: to be present to God's presence, attentive to His voice, and sensitive to His timing. As Howard Thurman wisely noted, "Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." Coming alive in this way means surrendering our timelines and success metrics to embrace God's often mysterious formation process. It means recognizing, as Jean-Pierre de Caussade wrote in "Abandonment to Divine Providence," that "the present moment is always filled with infinite treasure; it contains far more than you are capable of receiving."

The fruit that God ultimately produces through a surrendered life will be far more abundant and lasting than anything we could manufacture through our striving. Jesus promised, "I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5).

The key is remaining—abiding—even when the brook is drying up, even when the flour seems about to run out, even when the voices around us predict our failure. For it is precisely in these moments that God is doing His deepest work, preparing us for fruitfulness that will endure through eternity.
As we learn to recognize and honor our season, we discover that the valley is not a detour from God's purpose but the very path to it. The waiting is not wasted time, but the womb in which our calling is born. And the difficulties are not obstacles to fruitfulness but the soil from which it will spring.