Highs and Lows

Do you have any memories of trying to walk up a slide? Many of us have done that as children, and depending on how slippery the slide is, and how grippy your shoes or feet are, is how fast you make it up. I remember sliding down as often as getting to the top.

Life seems to be that way quite often.

After the intense experiences of therapy and prayer I felt that I had gotten to the top of the slide. I could see far, the air was cleaner, and I had accomplished something that took many years of pain away. Everything felt so good. I loved everyone and wanted to share the joy with as many as would listen. I blogged about it, talked about it, and felt like I couldn’t contain myself.

Then I got tired. Bone weary! The enemy started to whisper in my ear again. I tried blocking it out, but it’s hard when one is so tired. Jesus kept telling me to rest, but I felt like I had just been reborn and I had long lists of things I needed to start and accomplish. I don’t have time to rest…life is just getting interesting!! But, why am I so tired?

Are we meant to constantly experience these highs? I don’t think so. At least for me, it is important to stop and meditate from time to time. What did I learn during this time of teaching? What is God trying to tell me? What have my family, friends, and spiritual family spoken into my life while I have been high and low? How can I go forward with what I have learned? And how will it stay with me from now on?

It is so easy to just seek the highs, after all they feel so good. We walk around dancing and singing one day, and then something hits. It’s pretty easy to see what it is, in hindsight, but we need to be on guard that it doesn’t drag us down to where we lose hope. The enemy uses his tricks, they are always the same ones, to bring us down. He doesn’t want to see us happy and full of love. We are dangerous to him then. The kingdom doesn’t grow when the church is full of apathy and discouragement…and that is how he wants it.

As I was sitting here this morning, drinking tea, I kept feeling like I was fighting for something. Something really precious. Peace. Joy. Love. I know that I can’t rely on the emotion that I have had for the last few months. Emotions come and go. What is true? What is always there? The Word of God. The truth.

We are fragile in of ourselves, but with the foundation of God’s Word we have strength. Learning to meditate on a verse at a time, or a passage, gives us the arsenal to use against the enemy. We have our light, and we have the power to thwart his lies. We have all of God’s goodness and love fighting with us.

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:6-12, 16-18 NIV)

When I was in boarding school we had to get up at 6:30 every morning to memorize Bible verses. Before breakfast!! It sounds harsh, but it was the best thing that I experienced there. Those verses have never left me. During times of trouble and doubt, a verse pops up…it’s been there all along. Never leaves. Never will.

Time to learn some more….

Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:8, 9 NIV)