“When I get to the bottom I go back to the
top of the slide, where I stop and I turn and I go for a ride ‘til I get to the
bottom and see you again.” Conjures
images of an overexcited puppy running laps in a living room when it gets just
so excited that it doesn’t know what to do…then tuckers out and collapses in
sleep mid-stride. It even sounds a
little like the screaming Beatles’ fans shown in the old television clips
clutching their faces and just screaming in excitement until they faint. (Sounds a little mood-swingy, too.)
But it’s a feeling I’ve experienced from
time to time…and by that, I mean all the time.
I feel that way when I think about Grace, and more explicitly, Jesus
dying on the cross for me…and you. When
I get depressed, I’m reminded of Grace, and I go back to the top of the top of
the slide. And there I stand on the mountaintops. My arms are thrown up in a Rocky pose, and
I’m on top of the world looking down on creation. I’m standing beside Moses and waiting for God
to pass by us so that we can just look at His back and get a glimpse of His
Glory. Everything’s going great in my
heart. I’m churning out devotionals and
prayer cards and things couldn’t be any better.
But then I turn the corner, and I go for a
ride. And I’m rocketing down the roller
coaster hill to the valley. And I look
at my shortcomings, and I see all of the failures I have when measured against
Jesus’ commands – and there I sit at the bottom. I’m so far down in the valley that I can’t
even see the mountain…much less the mountain top. I’m reading where Jesus commands me to love
others the way He loved, and I can’t even hold my temper against my family some
days. I’m reading where He tells the guy
to go sell all he owns and give it to the poor, and I’m sitting there like Ananias
and Sapphira wondering if I can find a way to not really give ALL of it. And I’m reading about Jesus telling me to go
proclaim His name in all the world…and I can’t motivate myself to even say His
name in Walmart because someone might hear me.
I look in the mirror and see the wretch described in Amazing Grace.
But am I taking up my cross? Or am I looking for loopholes to be able to
set it down sometimes? Uh oh, I’m on my
way back down again. Because when I sit
and reflect on what Jesus did for me, am I sacrificing myself for Him? Am I offering the best of my flock or am I
doing like the religiously corrupt in Bible days and only sacrificing the diseased
animals in my life? I say I’ve changed,
but when was the last time I truly loved my neighbor as myself? Jesus said, “Love others as I have loved.” But while I’m down in the valleys, I have to
admit that I don’t even like some people…and have made no effort to get over
it. I read the Bible, and it says that
I’ll be forgiven the way that I forgive others.
And am I forgiving the woman at the well married five times, or am I
making jokes about it…And THEN using THIS EXACT verse as the punchline to my joke?! So now I’m not just going down the slide, I’m
plummeting like a 6,000 pound boulder dropped from an airplane down into my
valley. But then Grace brings me back up
again…I’m on a YoYo. Literally Helter
Skelter with the up and down and doing it again.
Listen for the Whisper that tells you that you’re likely
not alone if you experience the same roller coaster of emotion during your walk
with God. Jeremiah did that in Jeremiah
20:7-18. You want to talk about ups and
downs…Jeremiah goes from one extreme to the other from one verse to the next! Elijah did the same thing. He’s so depressed in 1 Kings 19 he just wants
to lay down and die. Paul the apostle
proclaims the joy he has in Christ and counts everything as joy, but constantly
refers to himself as the chief sinner. (I
don’t know specifically that Paul went through the roller coaster that I’m
describing here.) And maybe I’m
alone. Maybe I’m the only one with the
crazy mood swings when it comes to my Salvation. Maybe I’m the only one that feels the joy of
the mountain tops of Grace followed by the despondent feeling that Lot must
have felt when looking around Sodom and Gomorrah…followed by the moments of
depressing self-reflection where I realize how unworthy I am. Might be the only person that ever feels this
way…But I’m willing to take a shot at this and say that I’m not.
The 1 Kings 19 reference I just mentioned where Elijah is
so depressed he wants to lay down and die?
Well that’s right after 1 Kings 18.
1 Kings 18 is where we see the story of Elijah and prophets of
baal. Elijah is so far up the
mountaintop that he can barely see the prophets down there. He’s having the “sacrifice contest” where the
real God will consume the sacrifice with fire.
The 450 prophets of baal are chanting and dancing and whatnot, and
Elijah is so giddy with his excitement that he’s literally mocking them. 27 At noon Elijah began to taunt them. “Shout louder!”
he said. “Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or
traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened.” And they’re dancing and cutting
themselves and (in my head I’m seeing) Elijah over there like some crazy, old
cartoon character yucking it up! Then he
prays a simple prayer and God answers and consumes the sacrifice with fire. Then the very next chapter, Elijah is feeling
like he’s the only one out there. Scared
and running from Jezebel. Apparently his
joy is as fleeting as mine is. He openly
taunts 450 prophets of baal who are cutting themselves with swords, but then runs,
hides…scared of Jezebel. God who? 3 Elijah
was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left
his servant there, 4 while he himself went a day’s journey into the
wilderness. He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might
die.
Prayed that he might die? For someone that just stuck it in the face of
the prophets of baal, that sounds a little extreme to me. But Jonah did the same thing. “Jonah, go to Nineveh!” “Nuh-uh!
I’m going to Tarshish to get away from you! They’re crazy over there in Nineveh!” (big storm, big fish, big attitude adjustment
later) Jonah has gotten over his fear and is preaching in Nineveh about the
Power and Glory and Righteousness of God.
And the WHOLE CITY repents. And
Jonah praises a merciful God after the whole storm, fish, attitude deal? Nope…goes off and pouts. More than pouts, he gets MAD! Mad at God for actually forgiving
Nineveh. Jonah Chapter 4:1 But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and
he became angry. 2 He prayed to the Lord, “Isn’t
this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by
fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow
to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.
3 Now, Lord, take away
my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.” KNEW God was loving and now
mad because He is.
“When I get to the bottom I go back to the
top of the slide, where I stop and I turn and I go for a ride ‘til I get to the
bottom and see you again.” I’m not
saying the roller coaster is right. And
maybe at some point along the walk, we’ll get beyond the valleys. Maybe we’ll be mature enough in our faith to
step along like giants from mountaintop to mountaintop. But given what we see in Jonah, and Elijah,
and Jeremiah…I doubt it. Like the set of
footprints and two grooves in the sand…”those are where I dragged you.” Our faith is tested in the valleys. And God will never stop testing our
faith. We’re told this very thing in 1
Peter 1:6-7. 6 In all this you greatly
rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all
kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of
your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by
fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. The trick is to
not lose sight of the mountaintops and who sits there. So let’s revisit those lyrics and change them
a little so that we’re talking to God. When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide, where I
stop and I turn and I go for a ride ‘til I get to the bottom and see You again. Then I’m back on the mountaintops.
~Dwayne
ListenForTheWhisper@comcast.nethttp://listenforthewhisper.blogspot.com
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