Gang, I have to be out of town from later this afternoon through tomorrow evening. Plus, my blog’s new dashboard format has made it where I can’t readily figure out how to schedule a post. So, I’m going to go ahead and put up tomorrow’s article right now. As always, it is my weekly contribution to the Canyon Lake (TX) Times-Guardian:
“Of Mountains and Valleys”
Life has its highs and lows. There is no disputing that. Nobody’s daily existence stays on a constant even keel. Yes, some people’s experience is more consistently that way than are others. But, everybody’s lives are made up of partly happy and partly hard times. “That’s life,” as the saying goes.
Now, the descriptions of those highs and lows can be quite colorful. For example, growing up in Mississippi, I heard more than any other sayings “high as a kite,” on the one hand, and “low as a snake’s belly in a wagon rut.” Do you have favorite folksy sayings in this area?
Often, very positive, joyful times are referred to as “mountaintop experiences.” By contrast, the particularly difficult periods are frequently called something like “the deep, dark valley experience.” Both descriptions strike a nerve with most of us, because, at least a few times, we’ve felt like we were “on top of the world” or “hitting rock bottom.”
My main reason for developing this train of though, though, is to explore the emotions of these polar opposite experiences. But, I am not going to do this as ends in themselves. Instead, I am going to tease out where these emotional states put a person before God. (If that doesn’t make sense to you as you just read, hang on! It will very soon.)
When a person is in the midst of a classic “mountaintop experience,” he or she usually feels invulnerable. Everything has come together just right and, at that moment (if no other time in life), you feel as if nothing can touch or harm you.
It is completely natural to feel that way. However, the emotions of happiness/joy that are the first reaction frequently do not stay at that pure level. They turn into pride, which manifests itself in a cocky attitude and behavior. And, that often is the primary difference between a gracious winner and an arrogant jerk. Almost all of us have seen such persons, perhaps the same person who once was a gracious victor, but whose inflating ego transformed him or her into a strutting, stuck-up “big-head.”
At the other end of the scale, people going through the really tough breaks of life often feel absolutely worthless. Even if you did your very best, and did absolutely nothing wrong, it is hard not to feel like you have screwed up royally and that there is nothing good about you at all.
So, how do these opposite emotional states stand up before God? Frankly, neither is anywhere close to a balanced perspective in God’s eyes. Let’s think about that together as I close this article.
The “high” of pride is seeing yourself as more than you really are. This faulty perspective can lead a person to think that he or she can be good enough before the Lord to be acceptable in His sight on your own personal merits. But, that flies right in the face of the Apostle Paul’s argument in Romans 3—nobody is good enough; everybody is a lost sinner, hopeless without God’s intervention.
The “low” of self-worthlessness, so to speak, is seeing yourself as less than you really are. It infers from your emotional bottom point that nothing could possibly save a wretch like you. However, that fails to recognize that you are made in the image of God (Gen. 1:26-27) and that Christ died in your place on the Cross (John 3:16). Yes, you are far from “good enough” in God’s eyes, but Jesus has acted to declare you righteous before God, if you will but trust Jesus by faith (Rom. 5:1).
Which category are you in? Is your self-estimate too high because of pride? Too low because of major setbacks or losses? Or, just right through faith in Jesus? He will give you that supernatural ability to balance the highs and lows of life, if you will just give Him the chance to do so by trusting Him.
Coming Tuesday: (I’m still in the process of making that decision. Please pray for me!)
