I was thinking the other day about this pattern I've noticed in my life. I'm okay, then not okay, then okay, then not okay. I seem to get a handle on things, seem to start really growing and changing, I feel like I could take on anything because God is with me... and then BAM! I'm overwhelmed with these hopeless feelings because something happened, and that led to something else, and pretty soon I'm curled up in a ball crying to myself and wishing I could just die and be done with all the pain and discouragement. I feel like a failure. I feel like I'll never be good enough. I literally question the good in my existence. Why should I keep on going if I'm never going to be free from this cycle? If I'm always going to "crash" again at some point?
And the other day as I was thinking about all this and praying to God, this cool analogy popped into my head. Imagine God is like a mountain, or a cliff. And life is like climbing this cliff. IF YOU LET GO OF THE ROCK, OF COURSE YOU'RE GOING TO FALL. And I just stopped and thought, "Of course!" That's why I'm caught in this cycle. I keep making progress, but then I get distracted and I let go of God and I FALL. That's exactly what happens - it's like I forget God even exists, and the next thing you know, some little thing comes up and I'm a complete wreck, hopeless and discouraged and just a mess. I become a slave to my thought stream. "You're not good enough. You should have done _____. You fail at everything. You'll never change." And it's pretty much all over until I remember God and start fighting all that crap off with the truth. "I have value because God created me and God doesn't make mistakes. God cherishes me. Jesus died so that I could become a child of God. I have great value. God will not abandon me. God will complete the work he has begun in me. I can change. It's just a slow process. I'm making imperfect progress." Imperfect progress - a cool term I found in a book called Unglued, by Lisa TerKeurst.
Anyway, back to the analogy - in light of the letting go of God and falling concept, it seems to me that if I don't want to be stuck in this cycle and keep crashing and having to start over, I'm going to need to stop letting go of the Rock. Which makes sense, but I'm sure it is much easier said than done. It's not like I go out and forget about God on purpose. I just get distracted by life, or by trials, or whatever. I get caught unprepared.
So it seems likely that I'll probably continue to fall. I doubt I'll go forth from this moment and never crash again. But God-willing, I'll keep getting back up and climbing again! At least it's not like I have to start over completely. It's not like every time I fall I forget everything I've learned and everything that God has done to mold me and teach me so far. I'm still becoming stronger from all the climbing, and I'm learning the route. And I don't fall all the way down every time. Sometimes I only fall a little ways before I grab the rock again and catch myself.
I'm trying not to get too discouraged by the fact that I fall. So I'll climb back up again and maybe get a little higher this time before I slip. I'm giving myself permission to make mistakes. To not be "perfect." How would I learn to press in to God and not let go if I don't fall a few (or more than a few) times? You know that line from the new Batman trilogy? "Why do we fall, Bruce? So we can learn to pick ourselves up."
God is good! And one day, perhaps, I'll have finally learned to stay focused and not let go of God, and I'll be free from "the cycle" for good! Then I'd really be able to climb to some new heights. Or maybe that's not how it works. I don't know. Maybe sometimes you have to fall. Maybe that's how you learn to climb. Yeah, I think that's what it is. But I think we'll always have places where we fall. Maybe when we're first starting out, some little thing causes us to slip and crash. And maybe we learn to get past that, and we become better climbers and can navigate similar obstacles with ease... but then we get further up the mountain and there are new, harder challenges, and we fall again because we haven't learned to handle this new obstacle yet... Yeah. This is sounding right to me. I still think it's important not to let go of God. And that's what I'm learning right now. I think if you hold on, even if you slip you won't completely fall off. Even if you struggle or get stuck somewhere, you don't have to crash to the ground. You know? God is like the ultimate Anchor. He IS security. He is our strength.
Cool stuff.
No comments:
Post a Comment