SURVIVING ON LIFE'S ROLLER COASTER

Psalm 102: 1-13 and 103:1-5, 15-18

Going to amusement parks is just not my thing. So, it's of no great surprise that my driving passion was NOT to ride the biggest, baddest, fastest, most terrifying roller coaster in the Midwest, the “Blue Streak” at Cedar Point Amusement Park outside of Sandusky, Ohio. Yet, there I was.

You may not know this, but if you sit in the front car, and if the drops are steep enough and the speed is fast enough, momentarily weightlessness can be achieved. Having no confidence in the bar that locked across my lap, I was sure that I was going to fly out of the car.  My screams confirmed that I believed this was the day I was going to meet Jesus face to face.

Life is like a roller coaster. There are the ups and downs: the “Mondays” when nothing goes right, when really good days are followed by bad days. There are also the times filled with soul-wrenching losses, suffering and disappointments when we're holding on with all our might as changes beyond our control rushes us along.

The words of the writer of Psalm 102 give voice to the suffering of the people of Israel in captivity. Life holds very little hope; it's lost it's meaning. So full of sorrow, they can't eat or sleep. Their hearts and spirits are broken, and illness, along with the mocking of their enemies, afflicts them.

This is more than just a bad day or week or even a year. This is the soul-weariness of waiting for answers that may not satisfy or even come. This is reeling from loss and disappointments that continually batter us with no relief.  Sometimes, we are so worn out from just trying to survive that we can't even sense God's presence with us.

That's how I felt on the roller coaster ride that seminary became. During my first year, when Tom was working in Richmond, Virgina, I presented with degenerative disc disease complicated by arthritis in my neck and upper back. According to my MRI, I was a mess.

Despite the physical therapy, the pain medication, the exercises and traction and everything else we tried, the pain got worse and worse. I had to give up my student pastorate (which was helping to pay for tuition), I had to drop out of classes, and typing papers was excruciating.

I was worried and frightened: worried that I was going to have to drop out of seminary and give up the ministry God had called me to; frightened that I might never be able to return to the workforce. But the hardest thing was that I couldn't sense the presence of the Lord.

In his sense of abandonment by God, the writer of Psalm 102 turns to what he knows is true and proven about God: That God is in charge, and will always be in charge; that God will respond to His people with compassion and love.

When I can't “feel” God, the strength and the peace to go on comes from what I “know” of God.

Psalm 103:1-6, 17 (The Message) reminds us that:

“He forgives your sins—every one.
    He heals your diseases—every one.
    He redeems you from hell—saves your life!
    He crowns you with love and mercy—a paradise crown.
    He wraps you in goodness—beauty eternal.
    He renews your youth—you’re always young in his presence.

God makes everything come out right;
    he puts victims back on their feet.

God’s love ... is ever and always,
    eternally present to all who fear him,
Making everything right for them and their children.”

God's love is ever and always eternally with us, even when life's circumstances tell us otherwise. God makes everything come out right even when everything seems to be going so wrong.

So, when life is taking us for the ride of our lives, when there seems to be more Mondays than Sundays on our personal calendars, remember the words of Philippians 4:8-9, beloved: “Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies.” (The Message)

Focus on and stand firm on what we know is true and proven of God, and with God through Christ, we will more than survive on life's roller coaster.