Roller Coaster

How we loved the thrills, the curves, the up into the sky slow ride before letting loose on a series of downhill, up and over, down and around, seemingly jolting you out of your seat roller coaster rides that left us breathless! I liked one so much that I rode it 11 times. Crazy.

That's an amusement park fantasy ride, but when it becomes real life, the ride doesn't leave us so breathless. It often leaves us speechless. Great highs are often followed by even greater lows, some orchestrated by our own self sabotage. Then there are those moments when someone or something also leaves us breathless, but they leave us before we are ready to have them do so. Disappointment sets in and lingers almost to the point of never wanting to be hurt that way again.

You could speak that way of relationships of all kinds, but for this blog we will only speak about the one on one we develop through searching for Christ and our identity in him. I am sure God, who is infinite in all ways, may just cringe a little when we turn our backs on him, though he always remains open to our turning around. But we humans, always finite, have trouble with that, especially in a ministry like ATB where we go out of our way to help people who are really lost.

When someone we have worked closely with either works us for money, time and support and runs away for something the program calls cunning and baffling, we are hurt no matter how much faith and Jesus we have in us. The Roller Coaster Ride just got very scary because we don't feel like it is worth another disappointment.

But it is, because it is not about us, it is about Him, and doing what he asks of us, and that is to do the will of God regardless of how it makes us feel. Believe me, I know this, have failed at this and come back with a resolve that what we do will not ever be about me so that if someone goes on a relapse, that is between them and God, I will have done my very best to keep them on the good side of sobriety.

If the focus is off ourselves, then we are able to absorb the blow on His behalf, as He absorbed the blow for us!  

This one I have ridden many more times that 11. We just cannot get enough because He gave us more than enough.