Get Back Up

I remember when knockdowns and setbacks were a mere annoyance, as simple to remedy as a pesky bug buzzing around. It was laughable to think that getting back up would be hard! Getting back up required no forethought, no energy, no emotion. I just popped right back up as if I were still a kid on the trampoline in my backyard, propelled to soar to tree limbs with such little energy.

Not so now.

I'm not sure if it's physical age, or the depth of devastation, or why it's different now. But it is different now. 

Every.

Single.

Day.

Each day I plan how to live victoriously in that day. Each day I PURPOSEFULLY live happily. Each day I have to get back up.

When this new method of living was my reality I was so angry at God for not taking me out of this earth to Heaven. If "to live is Christ, to die is GAIN," then what kind of cruelty kept me here? Give me my "gain," for goodness sake! Every plane takeoff where I was on board I'd send texts of love, forgiveness, and mercy before we had to power down our phones. THAT'S how confident I was that God was going to answer my prayer and take me to The Other Side. In the old days I prayed safety and protection over the plane and flight, but I stopped doing that since it seemed like a quick and easy way for God to answer my prayer. I didn't talk about this line of thinking to anybody because I wasn't trying to be dramatic and get attention. The last thing I wanted was for anyone to pay attention to me. I wanted to be left alone to die. But neither God nor man were in sync with me on this one.

"To live is Christ."

I've always seen this activity of living-is-Christ as being very jubilant, therefore very fluid, natural, and easy. But that was from my perspective of youth and fairy tales. What about Christ's life was easy? From his first year of life the government was hunting him down to kill him. While travel is sometimes fun when you're headed to Disney World, a road trip in the dead of night because you're being hunted down certainly turns up the volume on the phrase, "Are we there yet?"

Living-is-Christ puts us in a position to participate in the miraculous, to have power over death, hell, and the grave, and to be surrounded by followers. And as long as these people and situations are helping us accomplish our goals these moments are ecstatic. But let us not forget that Christ was run out of town, was continually in one argument or another with the religious, was rarely with his family, was a 24/7 teacher. Not to mention the final hours of his life; the excruciating crucifixion. 

Dying is gain because it puts us across the finish line. Dying with a clean conscience toward God is gain because we've run a good race and we've finished  our course. But LIVING is necessary to accomplish the victory of death. 

There is no victory in hiding in a hole waiting for death. The will of God is that we get out of the hole and LIVE as Christ did. It is the will of God that we have HOPE. It is the will of God that we experience JOY. It is the will of God that we produce all of the fruit of the Spirit. We are cheating God if we do not get back up and strive to fulfill His will of pursuing these things. 

Why does he ask this of us? So that we are a testimony of His strength and involvement in our lives. If after our devastation we live in a hole we are telling the world around us that God is a liar. Holed-up behavior is exhibiting that God is nowhere to be found, that there is no hope, no joy, nothing to rise again for. 

Christ got back up after his devastation. He got back up because there was more to do. You need to get back up yourself because there is more to do! To die will NOT be "gain" if you do not do the will of God and LIVE AGAIN. 

I personally have chosen four verses that I read EVERY morning. I have alerts set up on my phone to smile EVERY hour. I have a life vision that pops up on my phone EVERY morning; To live in the reality of Faith, Hope, & Love.

My feelings tell me every day that life is not worth living. My logic shows me every day that I should not expect my hopes to come to pass. My present shows me every day that after all these years I STILL have not obtained the desires of my heart. 

BUT GOD'S WORD TELLS ME TO NOT BE DICTATED BY THESE THINGS.

I'm suppose to walk by faith, not by sight.

That's why I fight each and every day to get back up again. I smile because the REALITY of life is not what I feel, or see, or think. The REALITY is what I can't see: Faith, Hope, and Love. Christ is not my Fairy Godmother, giving me my whims. He sees the end from the beginning and He's going to give me the desires of my heart based on all He knows of what's to unfold. His top priority as my Father is to protect and defend me. If I'm allowing him to protect me from my desires that will hurt me, everything will work out for my good! If I live every day angry at Him for "making" me live... well, how sad and unproductive is THAT!

Whatever has knocked you for a loop, has left you flat on your back... I'm truly sorry you've gone through those things. But, get back up. It may feel like "fake it 'till you make it," but in fact it's "FAITH it 'till you make it."

Proverbs 24:16 (KJV)

For a just [man] falleth seven times, and riseth up again: but the wicked shall fall into mischief.