Roller Coaster

This week of Vacation Bible School has had an emphasis on roller coasters. The theme is Colossal Coaster World, and we were able to have roller coaster tracks going across our stage.

All this talk about roller coasters made me think about how they can be a microcosm of life. Sometimes we are upside down. Humans are meant to stand on our feet, and when we go upside down on a roller coaster it is a foreign feeling to us.

We go through times in life where we feel upside down—when nothing makes sense and we feel disoriented.

But there are also parts of the ride where everything is downhill. After hitting a high point the roller coaster begins to accelerate back down, causing a major rush.

Life is full of ups and downs. After being upside down for a while we end up going downhill again and life calms down.

But the thing about roller coasters that stands out to me the most is the unknown. My favorite ride was always Space Mountain at Disney. This is such a fun ride because it is totally dark and no one can see what is going to happen next. There is nothing to do except hold on and enjoy the ride.

And that is the best way to live life. We don’t know what is up ahead, but instead of being afraid of it, we can hold on and trust God. On a roller coaster nothing happens that wasn’t thought out by the designer, and in life nothing happens that wasn’t planned by our Designer.

So instead of spending (or wasting) your life being afraid, just hold on and trust God. Remember, that fear didn’t come from God, but from our enemy. Let me leave you with our VBS theme verse, 2 Timothy 1:7:

“For God has not given us a spirit of fearfulness, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”

A Destroyed Building

Have you ever watched a building be destroyed? Sometimes the local news will cover the implosion of a historic building that is no longer in use. I remember watching a football stadium be demolished so that the team could build a new stadium where the old one once stood.

Destroying a building is systematic. There is first a decision made that the building has to go. Whether it is unsafe or too old to do what it needs to do, it is time to remove the building. Then experts are brought in to destroy the building the safest way possible, imploding it so that it doesn’t fall into other buildings, people, or streets.

But then work begins on a new building. This new structure will do what the old one was not sufficient to do.

As a believer in Jesus you once made a decision to destroy your old way of life—what the Bible calls the “old man.” It was time to go. Enough living for self. So the Lord helped you destroy it, and then the work of building up a new man began.

What would you think of a person who ignores a new building or stadium and decides to return to an old demolished pile of rubble? That’s what Paul told the Galatian Christians not to do in Galatians 2:18.

“For if I build again the thing which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.”

In the verse prior to that Paul said we cannot blame Christ if we choose to return to a life of sin. After all, He is the one who offers to build us up as a new creation.

So if you have destroyed your old way of life, don’t try to build it back up. You destroyed it for a reason—it wasn’t safe to live that way. Forsake that pile of rubble and continue to work on your new life.