This roller-coaster called life

I love what we as Christians have come to call the “mountain top” experiences of our life and faith. Seeing my children saved and baptizing them, going to Israel twice and walking where Jesus walked, and the many mission trips I’ve been on are all examples of those kinds of experiences for me. One thing I have learned about mountain tops is that no one lives on them perpetually. Most of us don’t live on the mountain top but rather in the valley.

As I have thought about this today, I’ve come to believe that God doesn’t really want us to live only on the mountaintops; our times in the valleys is part of His plan as well. And when I say this, I think he wants us to LIVE, not just exist, not just endure until the next mountaintop. Many people seem to believe that God only shows up on the mountaintops, and that those times of their lives where they are walking through the valleys are the barren times “in between mountains”. These folk tend to view life like a roller-coaster, simply a series of ups and downs – times when you are on the mountaintop and times when you are down in the valley, “far from God”. When you live like this, you find yourself longing for the next mountaintop. Then life really becomes like a coaster, going from mountaintop to mountaintop as if life were a game of spiritual hopscotch.

I’ve come to believe this is not a biblical approach to life. God is not just God of the mountaintops; He is God of the valleys as well. Jesus takes us up to the mountaintops, but He also sends us through (and walks with us in) the valleys. His power is there to fill our lives in both places, and His purposes are accomplished in both. The Christian life is not the occasional exciting high surrounded by mostly boring low points. The whole Christian life is one wild ride. Sure there will be high points, but there will also be deep valleys. There will be unexpected twists and turns, dark tunnels, and even some places where your world will be turned upside-down.

How do you keep from freaking out on a roller-coaster? You know that if you are a roller-coaster rider, you have to trust that the engineer that designed the path your car takes knows what he was doing, despite how out-of-control you feel at the moment. You also have to have faith that if you hang on and stay in the car, it will bring you safely home. No one gets aboard a roller-coaster without recognizing that at times the ride will get bumpy but they also realize they have a bar across their lap designed to hold them in the car. For the Christian, that lap bar is called faith. Most of the ride you probably don’t really need it, but when you do need it, it better be there. Emergency equipment is just a nuisance until you need it, and faith isn’t faith until it’s all you’re holding on to.

Jesus was not only the architect who planned our ride through life; he actually became flesh and rode the ride himself. Jesus’ life was filled with twists and turns, high places and low. One moment He was entering Jerusalem as a King, surrounded by cheering crowds and the next He was betrayed, tortured, and crucified. Jesus never got off the track designed for Him. He rode the whole ride with his hands in the air!

When the roller coaster car we are in goes over the crest of the hill and plummets toward the ground, it’s easy to forget about having faith in the roller coaster designer. Our human nature is to scream out and not worry with who hears or sees us. We, at those times try to hang on to the physical things around us and trust in them for our survival. It’s fairly easy to discern who those are who really have placed their trust in the designer … they let go, raise their hands, and enjoy the ride. This is a great metaphor for the Christian life. The next time you find yourself anxious or fearful, simply let go, raise your hands to the heavens and surrender it to Jesus. You’ll be amazed at how enjoyable the ride really is.

As we enter the valleys its natural for us to concentrate so hard on the problems at hand that we are no longer conscious of much else taking place around us. Just like a roller coaster when we grab the safety bar holding us into the seat and stare straight ahead at the tracks below, we can easily become so concerned about our immediate situation that we lose sight of everything around us, including what we call the big picture. Jesus did not intend for us to sit on a bench and watch others ride the roller coaster of life; He intended for us to experience it for ourself.

There’s one stark difference between a physical roller coaster ride and the spiritual roller coaster of our Christian lives. A physical roller coaster begins with the highest peak at the beginning of the ride. As the ride progresses, each peak gets lower and lower while the valleys, or dips, stay the same. That is an excellent picture of a life without Christ. A person without Christ will spend his or her life looking for any way possible to climb above the valleys they find themselves in. As they progress along the track of ups and downs of life, it seems they find fewer and fewer things that lift them up. Those Christians who walk by faith close to the Lord find just the opposite to be true. Each low point is often not as low as the previous low point. But, the best part is how each high point is always bigger and better than the previous high point. As we progress through life’s roller coaster ride we climb higher and higher, making it possible to better visualize the big picture. This in turn makes it easier to keep a strong faith in the fact that God really will take care of everything we need.

So hang on, feel the power, and enjoy the ride. When the ride is over, and your car comes out of the last bunny hop and rolls back into the terminal, you’ll get to praise the designer and tell him how much you enjoyed the whole ride. Now this is important … You and I only get to ride this ride once; there is no “coming back next year”. When the ride is over we have to live forever with the results. When I get to heaven and am looking back on my life, I wonder what my souvenir photo is going to look like. Will I be surprised to find that Jesus was in the seat beside me the whole ride? Today I plan to let go, look forward, and enjoy both the ride and the view.