Dangerous Journey, Part 5

CHAPTER FIVE: The Valley of the Shadow

Today’s Theme: God With Us

Today, following on the heels of his fight with Apollyon and his healing through the leaves of a tree, Christian enters the Valley of the Shadow.  In a reference to the 23rd Psalm, the chapter is aptly titled The Valley of the Shadow, for he passes what appears to be the mouth of hell itself, assaulted by invisible spirits while traveling through the most treacherous ground yet.  His danger is physical, but it is no less mental and spiritual.  In the midst of his troubles, he hears someone ahead reciting the 23rd Psalm, and he is encouraged and reminded that even among all this darkness, God is with him, and so he finds strength to carry on.  He ends his trip through the valley passing by the giant Pagan and the fearful sight of all the bones of travelers he has eaten through the years.  Finally, he catches up with his old friend, Faithful, and they are told by Evangelist (in excellent cliff-hanger form) that one of them will not survive their next chapter.

Devotional Application

Like Christian, even when there is no Apollyon upon us, the road we and our children walk is treacherous.  We are buffeted by physical dangers–cancer, car crashes, broken limbs, thieves and robbers.  Also like Christian, we are sorely tried in mind and spirit to despair and give in to fear and “base suggestions.”  Yet as we walk through those difficulties, we are assured God is with us.  After all, that is what Immanuel–one of Jesus’s names–actually means.

Bible Verses

• MEMORY VERSE Job 29:3—“When his lamp shone upon my head, and by his light I walked through darkness….”  [powerpress]

• Matthew 1:20-23—“But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. ²¹ She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus,^[f] because he will save his people from their sins.’  ²² All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: ²³ ‘The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel'(which means ‘God with us’).”

• Psalm 23—¹The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
  ²He makes me lie down in green pastures.
  He leads me beside still waters.
  ³He restores my soul.
  He leads me in paths of righteousness
  for his name’s sake.⁴Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
  I will fear no evil,
  for you are with me;
  your rod and your staff,
  they comfort me.⁵You prepare a table before me
  in the presence of my enemies;
  you anoint my head with oil;
  my cup overflows.
  ⁶Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
  all the days of my life,
  and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD
  forever.

Activities

•  Object Lesson: Walking With God–Set up an obstacle course using every day chairs and toys in one room.  Include a rope or jump rope spread on the ground as an imaginary tight rope for the kids to walk.  Blindfold one child at one end of the room, and you and the other children stand on the other.  Give him the signal to go, and all of you attempt to shout directions to the blindfolded child to help him to the other side.  Hopefully this will result in a bit of chaos, and if so, you can ask the blindfolded child to choose one person to direct him.  If mere directions aren’t enough, the director may need to walk over and even take the hand of the blindfolded child, leading him to safety.  To apply the lesson, just ask your kids if they ever feel like the blindfolded kid–maybe feeling alone and not sure what is the best way to go.  If they don’t, you can assure them that will someday.  But like Christian, we can trust God to take care of us because He can see everything we can’t–and He is always with us to guide us and encourage us in our journey.

• Drawing Activity–One of the things I have done with my kids in the past is, when they have a particular fear, I’ve asked them to imagine the fearful situation, but this time with Jesus standing with them.  If you’re comfortable having them draw a picture of Jesus, you could ask them to draw themselves in a place they have been afraid of before (maybe the first day of school or first time in swim lessons), but also to draw Jesus watching over them.  For those who might prefer a less literal representation, you could have your child draw a sun to represent the light of heaven shining down into their dark places or the wind blowing to represent the presence of the Holy Spirit.

• Make-a-book–Here’s page five!  While this isn’t a picture of Jesus Himself helping Christian, it represents the idea of God being with us, this time through His minister.

Reading Notes

Our version skips a number of characters that Janie will cover–folks such as Pope and Talkative.  We also lose some of the richness of the symbolism such as that used for the Valley of the Shadow itself.  I thought a few passages might be worth putting in here for you guys who aren’t able to read the original text yourself with us.

• Bunyan’s Valley:  “I saw then in my dream, so far as this valley reached, there was on the right hand a very deep ditch; that ditch is it into which the blind have led the blind in all ages, and have both there miserably perished. [Ps. 69:14,15] Again, behold, on the left hand, there was a very dangerous quag, into which, if even a good man falls, he can find no bottom for his foot to stand on. Into that quag King David once did fall, and had no doubt therein been smothered, had not HE that is able plucked him out.”
  

• The Mouth of Hell: “About the midst of this valley, I perceived the mouth of hell to be, and it stood also hard by the wayside. Now, thought Christian, what shall I do? And ever and anon the flame and smoke would come out in such abundance, with sparks and hideous noises, (things that cared not for Christian’s sword, as did Apollyon before), that he was forced to put up his sword, and betake himself to another weapon called All-prayer. [Eph. 6:18] So he cried in my hearing, “O Lord, I beseech thee, deliver my soul!” [Ps. 116:4] ….Yet the fiends seemed to come nearer and nearer; but when they were come even almost at him, he cried out with a most vehement voice, “I will walk in the strength of the Lord God!” so they gave back, and came no further.”

• Pope–The makers of this book (and presumably first the video) chose to totally cut out the giant Pope.  Bunyan actually gave very little info as to what Pope stood for, besides the name, and I don’t think I’ll add it for my children at this point.  That said, I think Bunyan was right to perceive that many ancient religious traditions, whether Christian or non-Christian in name, often exalt man and his thoughts above God’s Word, and in so doing, they are very deadly.  Here are his original comments, if you’re interested: “Now I saw in my dream, that at the end of this valley lay blood, bones, ashes, and mangled bodies of men, even of pilgrims that had gone this way formerly; and while I was musing what should be the reason, I espied a little before me a cave, where two giants, POPE and PAGAN, dwelt in old time; by whose power and tyranny the men whose bones, blood, and ashes, &c., lay there, were cruelly put to death. But by this place Christian went without much danger, whereat I somewhat wondered; but I have learnt since, that PAGAN has been dead many a day; and as for the other, though he be yet alive, he is, by reason of age, and also of the many shrewd brushes that he met with in his younger days, grown so crazy and stiff in his joints, that he can now do little more than sit in his cave’s mouth, grinning at pilgrims as they go by, and biting his nails because he cannot come at them.

As for helping you apply our passage to your kids’ minds, here are a couple of entry points:

• First, when Christian cries out in prayer to God, and cries aloud to scare away his tormenters, you could ask your children if they have ever done that–prayed out loud to God in their difficulties.  Tell them that the old Puritans never prayed silently, but they spoke to God out loud just as any other friend who was in the room with them.  And you can encourage them to try it sometime when they feel discouraged–to think out loud and plead to God with heart AND voice.  Parents, this is especially useful for kids to see YOU do, as it shows them how you handle difficult situations and models not only real, heartfelt prayer, but also they can see how God answers you in the real difficulties of daily life.  (I certainly wish I did this more often and perhaps a little more reverently.   Still, I have seen God prosper some of the smallest of these seeds I have planted.)

• Pagan–A lot of folks use the word paganism to describe either polytheistic faiths or faiths outside the “Abrahamic” faiths–Islam, Judaism, and Christianity.  Another definition is anyone who is an irreligious or hedonistic person.  My best but totally uneducated guess is that, paired with Pope, for Bunyan these two giants cover any religion that seeks to give us relationship with God without Christ.  (But I’d really appreciate some insight from those of you who might be more learned on this particular point!)

• Faithful & Wanton–While my kids won’t get most of this and we’ll just call Wanton a “bad lady”, it’s probably worth telling them that Faithful’s temptations and difficulties were different than Christian’s, just like ours will be different from everyone else’s.  Maybe you could describe here some of your own struggles that are different from your spouse’s or a grandparent’s.

• One of You Will Die–Why would God allow one of them to die?  (And why bother telling them beforehand?)  While the next section describes the death of one of the travelers in a unique way that will help kids process the event, you might reassure them here that death isn’t the end.  It’s simply taking the shortest road to heaven.  Not joyful, of course, but not something to despair over.  It certainly doesn’t mean God is abandoning one of them, for He will be with them through it all and bring them safely home no matter what.

That’s all for today!  We’ll have more allegorical details to unpack on Thursday in Vanity Fair, though, so see you then. 

To read a few historical fiction book reviews, try our 4th of July Round Up.  Several books reviewed there are actually great for Thanksgiving or Christmas.  To start at the beginning of this series, see Dangerous Journey, Part 1.