Seeing Sideways
This blog was inspired from an email I received from someone who enjoys turning pictures sideways and seeing what new picture they can see in it. Honestly, I can’t ever say that I intentionally looked sideways at a picture, but it didn’t take me two seconds to see the church looking like a rocket in this photo.
During Covid, we found out that we could live without a physical church to go to during Covid. We found out that online church was a blessing. And, we realized, that we ARE the church (1 Peter 2:5). But I want to tell you that it was the church I was raised in that rocketed me and steered me in the direction that I needed to go in my quest for an abundant and blessed life. The church beckoned me to not only go to worship and praise God, but one of the big pulls for me was to see my friends and hang out with them there. I grew up hearing the faith-filled, miracle-filled stories of Jesus and all the characters in the Bible that I still desire to emulate in my life today. I loved the little Sunday School songs that used hand motions. So, speaking of rockets, I remember this one: “You’ll never get to heaven in a rocketship, a rocketship, a rocketship. You’ll never get to heaven in a rocketship. You must be born again!” And, yes, we would jump as high as we could when we said the word, “rocketship”.
It reminds me of another song: “On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.” Surely the moment that I tend to lose my ways AND find myself upside down or sideways or even when using my Waze app, I can sure get mixed up and feel like I’m in sinking sand. Like last week. My son’s IT guy was kind enough to transfer all my data and photos from my “dinosaur extinct” Windows computer (as he calls it) to a Mac. Oh, how I resisted making that change at this season in my life. In fact, I might have used the words “It’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks” and had to quickly retract them when I heard God’s voice in my ear saying “You can do all things through me because I strengthen you and empower you.” (Philippians 4:13)
This kind man handed over my old computer plus my new Mac Saturday morning. He made all the transfers to the new computer. I was picking it up from him as they were going out of town. Of all things, my GPS sent me the opposite direction and I was 20 minutes late getting to him. That negative voice that comes at us with talk of defeat and giving up and throwing in the towel slyly infiltrates our sound mind and the “mind of Christ” that we have as a believer (1 Corinthians 2:16). That voice was saying, “How can you figure out that new computer when you can’t even figure out how to get from Point A to Point B?” And I listened. I was completely sideways from where I was supposed to be.
But here’s the thing. I’ve come to recognize those voices that tell me I’m inadequate, too old and too late to learn something new. That’s when I’ve learned to put on my combat boots and pull out my sword of the Spirit and all the other parts of the armor of God. I refuse to not give up until I’m taken up. I won’t quit. I won’t submit to lies. It’s NOT OVER till I win! Want to join me on this winning team until we take God’s rocketship direct to Heaven Central? I’ve already got my “ticket to ride”!