Upside Down & Backwards

Have you ever noticed how fickle we are?  One moment we’re on top of the world.  We’re soaring on eagle’s wings above adversity.  We laugh at ourselves when we mess up.  We’re full of grace when people fail us.  We notice discouraged people, and we stop to encourage them.  We’re patient with people, with traffic lights, with buffering computers, and with ourselves.  We see the big picture, and we sense that God is in control of everything.  Experiencing God’s presence, peace, and perspective helps us say and do what’s needed, and we rest well at night amidst all of the chaos of our world.

And then everything snaps.  Our temperamental coin flips, and everything seems to bother us.  We become critical of ourselves and judgmental towards others.  We get in a funk and stay away from people we know and love.  We stir up conflict instead of being peacemakers.  We build a case against people and groups instead of praying for and helping them.  We get organized around what’s wrong instead of seeing and saying the good.  We question where God is, and we can’t find Him anywhere.  We can’t turn off our minds, and we can’t sleep.  As my one son says, “SHEESH!” 

You would think that the older we become, the more flexible we would become.  We start out being spoiled when everyone meets our basic needs.  We grow in our independency as our parents equip us to do for ourselves what they used to do for us.  Through education and life’s experiences, we develop knowledge, diverse perspectives, adaptive coping and problem-solving skills, and wisdom.  You would think that the older we become, the less people and circumstances would upset us. 

But think about how much time you spent this past week being upset with people or circumstances beyond your control.  Did you spend more time and energy giving thanks and dwelling on what’s right, or did you spend more time getting organized around pain, problems, and what’s wrong in our world?  Is the box you live in becoming bigger or smaller?  Are you becoming more open or more closed?  Do you want things your way, or do you live in other people’s preferences?  Are you training your mind, your emotions, and the people around you how to go with the flow, or does everything seem to bother you? 

When I’m not okay, nothing is okay.  And when I’m not okay, it’s easy to let you take me to Funky town. I wish I could always sense the presence of God’s Spirit above, in, and through my life, but I don’t.  I practice my daily spiritual disciplines.  I daily chew on, digest, apply, and share God’s Word.  I invest my life in loving and helping people of all ages, but that’s no guarantee that God’s peace and perspective and Lordship will rule my mind, emotions, body, reactions, and relationships. 

Maybe that’s why I’ve been thoroughly enjoying this season reading the Psalms.  David is all over-the- place!  One minute he’s praising God and singing of God’s goodness and unfailing love.  The next minute He’s ticked off at God trying to get Him to listen, show up, and do something to help him.  David goes from being thrilled with God’s handiwork and sovereign intervention throughout history to wondering why God doesn’t care and doesn’t help him. 

Through the ever-changing seasons of my life, I’m realizing that cultivating an abiding relationship with God is what’s most important.  Becoming a person after God’s own heart is more about being shaped over time by God’s Spirit through people and life’s circumstances than it has to do with having the right thoughts, feelings, behavior, experiences, stuff, or perspectives.  The closer I become to Jesus, the sooner I realize when I have things upside down and backwards.  The more I abide in God’s Word, the quicker I recognize when Satan is trying to dupe me with his lies.  The more I cultivate connected relationships with people whom I know and trust, the more people speak truth in love and correct my mistaken ways of thinking and relating.

God has endless ways of loving and restoring us.  When we slip on the next banana peel of our excessive passion, God helps us see what we are missing and neglecting when our passion turns to zeal.  He usually uses the people around us, who know us all too well, to help us chill and to do a work of grace in us.  He uses people on the other side of our walls and tracks to correct and improve us.  He uses the least likely people, and the worst of our moods and circumstances, to shape us into His likeness.  Then we become right-side-up and forwards instead of upside-down backwards.

Our next Spirit-Driven cutting-edge communication tool that is in the process of being produced is called Flip Chips.  It will be a fun-loving, competitive food game that will help us all learn to become more honest with both sides of our lives–when we have things right-side-up and when we get it upside-down and backwards.