I have recently come to the conclusion that life is similar to one long rollercoaster. Sometimes you find yourself pulling yourself up a mountain. It’s hard, and there are times when you feel you can’t go any further. That’s when you stop and realize that all you have to do is cry out to your Father, who is always there to pull you the rest of the way. “For it is the Lord who will fight your battles for you.” And once you give the control over to Him, you realize how much easier life is. There are times when, instead of pulling you up, He will simply give you the strength for you to do so. In these instances, you are faced with a choice. You can decide that it’s too hard, you’re not equipped, or not qualified enough to do it; so you stop pulling, stop climbing, and go into “neutral” mode. But you are never stationary, because if you quit pulling yourself up, gravity will automatically begin to pull you back down, and you end up worse off than when you started. Or you can choose to believe that God will give you enough strength, mercy, and grace to summit the mountain. I won’t say it’s easy or that it’s not painful, but in the end, you will find yourself victorious and stronger for it.
Sometimes you can find yourself flying down the other side of the mountain, twisting and turning and flipping upside down at breakneck speeds. It can be fun. I, for one, happen to love rollercoasters. The feel of the wind whipping past your face; the adrenaline rush, the way your car (and subsequently your body) go flying through the air at speeds and angles it probably shouldn’t be allowed to do. Life can be like this. Sometimes God’s grace and favor are so obviously upon your life that all you can do is throw your head back and say “Wow is life good!” The adventures He takes you on are sometimes so amazing that you wonder how you could ever not love this life He’s called you to live. The joy overflows from your heart, and His love poured out on you touches you to your core and reaches those around you. You watch God work through you – and often in spite of you – and are filled with wonder at how even the smallest details are not lost on Him.
But sometimes those drops aren’t so fun. Sometimes you are plunged into a long, dark tunnel, where there are drops and twists that leave you breathless and aching, because you didn’t have time to prepare for them. You can’t see your way around, and you sometimes are reduced to throwing your hands in the air and screaming “What’s next?!”
However, at the end of the day, God is still the Master Designer of your life – or, for the sake of this post, your rollercoaster. Nothing will ever come your way that just slipped by God. Though the enemy does everything he can to throw things at us to make us doubt our Maker, God still has the last say. He will never allow any drops or twists or loops in our lives that would cause us to go careening off course and destroy us. Unless we willfully decide to bail out on God, we are perfectly safe on His course for our lives.
And there’s a really cool thing that happens at the end of a drop. Because of the speed and force with which you have been traveling, it pushes you up the next hill. When we choose to trust God and grow stronger through the trials, it is a springboard into the next season of our lives, and we can hit the ground running.
This has been so clear in my life lately. This past month has been an adventure in and of itself. There have been days that are so incredibly amazing and full of God’s presence that I am left speechless and awed by His greatness. And there have been days where I feel like my heart has been wrenched out and torn to pieces.
Life is full of ups and downs. Good times come and go. So do the bad. Yet this one thing remains: God’s love never fails.
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