Lessons From a Teeter-Totter

One of the things I enjoyed as a youngster was playing on the teeter-totter at the playground around the corner from my house. My friends and I had a ball going up and down and up and down and we would play together for hours on end. For me, it was always better to be on the top end of the teeter-totter than on the bottom end. There is more fun up there and a better view!

Recently, as I visited the memories I had playing on this apparatus, I was reminded how life can be up and down! Just think about gas prices, grocery costs, home buying, vehicle purchases, broken families, strained relationships, mental health issues, political division, and social unrest just to name a few. Some things are up (which can get us down), and some things are down (and can try our spirits and life).

Isn’t this what our Christian experience is like? When things go our way or as we expect them to, we are generally up. There’s a jump in our step, a smile on our face, a joy in our singing, a soaring in our spirits, a calmness in our voice, and gratitude in our living. However, when life seems to deal us a bad hand, we have a tendency to get down. Our attitudes become critical, our calm becomes anxiety, our high stepping turns into a belly crawl, our patience runs thin or out, and we stop singing in joy and start griping with complaint. In essence our faith wavers!

I don’t know about you, but it seems at times I’m down more than I’m up. Yet, this shouldn’t be! If Jesus taught us anything about His plan and purpose for our lives, it was that we can overcome any obstacle before us if we follow His example and walk in His Spirit with strength, focus, and faith!

Consider these examples when things seemed down but Jesus turned them up:

-       A wedding party needing more drinks for its guests (John 2:1-10)

-       A father needing help for his son (John 4:46-54)

-       People that needed food to eat (John 6:1-13)

-       A family needing encouragement in a great tragedy (John 11:1-44)

Yes, Jesus rode the teeter-totter of life and yet managed to stay up rather than down. As He reminded us in so many passages of scripture, we can be up when life has us down. So, the next time the teeter-totter of life has you down, remember that Jesus is sitting on the other end. Look up, be lifted up, and rise up on the wings of eagles and soar!

There Is Victory In Jesus,

Jack