The Ups and Downs Racetrack

Wouldn’t it be lovely if our lives were always happy and on the up side of existence? There is, however, no guarantee that our lives will not have bumps and crashes.  We get to experience some of these bumps and crashes vicariously as we take in the news from around the World each day, knowing that in many cases it could be us in the news.

As we live out our lives, there is always the potential that things can get better, stay the same or get worse. Whatever the nature of our lives, there is always the potential for change. These changes can turn on a dime. Life can change course very quickly. Depending on the circumstances, it can be either good or bad, but either way it can be rapid.

There are basically two kinds of “down changes” that can happen to us. One is due to something beyond our control. The other is due to choices we make in living out our lives. Either way, life can be painful at times. We have little or no control over the one kind of down change, but we can have something to say about our choices in life.   

Aerosmith singer and songwriter, Steven Tyler, had some insight about this up and down life in his tune, Dream On. In part he wrote:
“Every time that I look in the mirror
All these lines on my face getting clearer
The past is gone
It went by like dusk to dawn
Isn't that the way
Everybody's got their dues in life to pay…”

Tyler continues in his tune by talking about life and the questions people have about where we come from and what happens when life ends:                                                                                               
“Yeah, I know nobody knows
Where it comes and where it goes
I know it's everybody's sin
You got to lose to know how to win….”

Tyler talks about information he’s sought in life and how that effects life’s outcome:                          
“Half my life's in books' written pages
Live and learn from fools and from sages
You know it's true
All the things you do, come back to you…”

There seems to be a spiritual tone of seeking in Tyler’s lyric. He actually wrote this tune when he was 17 years old and touched it up later.  It is pretty deep thinking for a person that young and you wonder if he is possibly seeking God in his life.

In his closing verse, Tyler refers to ups and downs in life and then mentions the Lord in writing: 
“Sing with me, sing for the year
Sing for the laughter and sing for the tear
Sing with me, if it's just for today
Maybe tomorrow the good Lord will take you away…..”

We can look at scripture for a deeper understanding of the things Tyler was commenting on and seeking to understand. Of course Ecclesiastes 3:1-9 certainly informs us of the ups and downs of life as it begins in saying: 
“To everything there is a season,
a time for every purpose under heaven.” It then goes on to name about every up and down you can think of e.g. “A time to be born, and a time to die….. A time to break down, and a time to build up….” And so on.

In Philippians 4:12-13 St. Paul tells us: “I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”

In 1^st Corinthians 13:7 we are reminded:   “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” And in Romans 12:12 we hear: “ Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.”

Our challenge is to trust in the Lord in all things and be patient and accepting in all that happens to us in our lives, even though Ecclesiastes tells us in part that we must live out our lives with: “…..a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to throw away….”

God Can Guide Us in Right Directions

Stop the World – I Want to Get Off is a musical originating in England that opened on Broadway in the early 1960’s.  It concerns a circus clown named “Littlechap” that sought to advance monetarily and in importance to become ringmaster one day. This would carry him to great cities in Europe with the circus. His rise to ringmaster would show the World that he was better than the average man.

In his mission to prove that he was a better man, he met a wonderful lady that happened to be the boss’s daughter Evie. He loved her dearly, but as he traveled around the world in his work, he would find other Evies in other places, thus being unfaithful to the real Evie. It was, however,due to his marriage to Evie, the boss’s daughter, that he became a more important man than he would ever have been had they not married.

His seeking to be more successful and important in life, along with his desire to use his stature and self proclaimed suaveness, to find other Evies in his travels ended in his later life in disappointment, but in an awakening. He finally realized that his distorted focus in life was not really what would make him happy and that he had what he really needed in the real Evie.

We all are capable of making bad choices in life. If we’re fortunate we wake up, like Littlechap did, and realize what’s really important in life. God is present for us and in us, if we will just let Him help us with our choices in life.

Our lesson in life is that no matter what we view as important or what desires we think we must fulfill, they will ultimately bring us down if we leave out God in acting out our lives on Earth. When we hit the bumps of life, no matter what we face, our God is there to console us and to heal us.

In Nehemiah 8:10 we hear, “Then he said to them, Go your way, eat the fat, drink the sweet, and send portions to those for whom nothing is prepared; for this day is holy to our Lord. Do not sorrow, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

So, we should enjoy life and be happy while we can, always remembering those less fortunate than us. We must remember the Source of our strength and not hesitate to seek the Lord in all things.

2 Timothy 1:7 comforts us in saying, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”

  We will face problems, but He helps us get through those problems.  If we are hurt, he will heal us. If we find ourselves in trouble and depression, God has the power to heal our broken hearts.

Psalms 42:5 advises us, “Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him, for the help of His countenance.” Philippians 4:13 instructs us, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

We must get to the point in life where we do seek strength from the power of God through Christ and the Holy Spirit. Our choices in life will be better guided and we will be comforted by Him when we are in need. Seeking God’s help in determining what is import in our lives is a must and He will help us curb the desires that lead us nowhere.

God, Nature and Us

The scenery that God has placed around us can serve to help us connect with Him spiritually. From the sky to the dust of the Earth, God touches us with His creative stage setting where we act out our lives. William Shakespeare once said, “And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.”

We are after all created, as God’s Word tells us in Genesis 2:7, “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”  We came out of the same dust that God used to create the scenery around us. Just like the plants in nature, we have a calling to become more as we emerge from the dust.

Anais Nin told us about this tenuous part of our development out of the dust in saying, “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Blossoming for the Lord is our calling, but we can choose otherwise. We can overrule God in all things if we are that foolish, but what sensible person would want to overrule the one who created us, is with us every moment, who knows the number of molecules in our natural body and especially loves every molecule that makes us whole. He loves His created children. And while He’s in our being, He’s managing every particle of mass in the universe!

As children of God, Psalm 103:13-17 informs us in saying: “As a father pities his children, So the Lord pities those who fear Him. For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days are like grass; As a flower of the field, so he flourishes. For the wind passes over it, and it is gone, And its place remembers it no more. But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him, And His righteousness to children’s children…”

We are all connected with all who have gone before us and all who will live after us. While we are in this natural world, we are called to seek the spirits of those who brought us to our place in history and use them as our springboard to leave a better world to those who will follow us.

Psalm 1:3 tells us this about the Godly man: “ He shall be like a tree Planted by the rivers of water, That brings forth its fruit in its season, Whose leaf also shall not wither; And whatever he does shall prosper.”

An old Greek proverb speaks to us about life in saying,” “A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.”

So, let us get the fertilizer of Christ-Jesus He left us in the Gospels and mix it in the water of our Baptism, and we will be prepared to flourish in our gardens of life. In concert and love with our brothers and sisters in Christ, we can plant our share of trees for the shade of future generations, always remembering those who passed on the shade of our time. 

Looking Inside Ourselves

Evaluating ourselves is a tough job.  We are naturally a bit prejudice, but more than that we are blind to much of who we are or at least a little fuzzy in our vision. 1 Corinthians 13:12 reminds us, “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.”

Yes, we can look in all directions, but the most important view we should take in living our lives is inside ourselves. That is the place where the truth will be revealed to us. In James 1:23-25 we discover, “For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.  But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.”

You probably remember the Wicked Queen Ravenna in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. She was so full of herself, but met her match at her mirror when the mirror revealed the truth:

“Queen: “Magic Mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?”

Magic Mirror: “Famed is thy beauty, Majesty. But hold, a lovely maid I see. Rags cannot hide her gentle grace. Alas, she is more fair than thee.”

What the Queen couldn’t see inside herself, the mirror revealed. What can we do to help ourselves understand what is really inside us?

Our spiritual condition is very important in understanding ourselves. In seeking God through His Son and the Holy Spirit, we come closer to understanding who we are and who we should be. We look inside ourselves not to see who we think we are and where we should go, but we look inside ourselves to seek our Creator God.

God can be found inside us.  Most times we think that our God is in a faraway place, but as our eternal source and creator, He is always right here with us, inside us. So it seems, our battle is within us. We seek the material and other attractive things in our lives that are outside us in the world, but we refuse to look inward. When we truly look inward we don’t see what we want, we see what God wants for us. He is so close, yet we think of Him as if He is in a faraway place.

We tend to seek all the things we can gain in our lives that we think will make us happy. Whether it’s money, status or pleasures we seek, when our focus is on them, we lose our life as a true child of God. The questions become for us: Can we dare look inside ourselves in order to connect with God’s Spirit? Are we willing to let the outside go and move our search in life toward ourselves?

In Luke 17:20-21 we get this understanding, “Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation;  nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.” Can we take this a half step further and claim that we are presently living in Eternal Life?

As we’ve learned, God’s time is not like our time. His clock is not ticking like our clock is ticking. There is no beginning and no end to Him, His Son or His Spirit. God is Eternal and as His created children, we were born into Eternal Life with Him. That’s why we need to look inside ourselves for the secret of life. When we fail to look, we give up our life in Him.

In our moving to an inward look we can take heed of St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians 4:6-7: “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”