Roller Coaster Ride

Is that what your faith is like, a rollercoaster ride? I think back to youth camps during the summer or a big conference during the school year that I would attend, and I would get on fire for God. I would feel God speaking to me. I would know what he wanted me to do. I would go back to my life ready to take on the world for God. Then a few months later I would be back to my old self and the fire had kind of died out. Did that happen to you as well?

The reason I bring this up, is that I feel like this describes the life of many Christians, young, old, and somewhere in between. There are times that I feel overwhelmed with the presence of God in my life and I am on the spiritual equivalent to the highest peak of a rollercoaster, but then things happen and it drops off. Sometimes very rapidly and sometimes it is a gradual decline, but it always declines.

What causes it to happen? I know it isn’t God pulling away from me. I am the one that is pulling away from God. Either I am not reading my bible enough, or my prayer life is lacking, or the things of life have just distracted me. It is probably a combination of these and more.

I don’t want a faith that is like this and I don’t think that you want a faith like this either. When we are on fire for God, we feel His presence, hear His words, and are using the power that we have been given through Christ Jesus and the Holy Spirit. When we are not on fire, we are relying on ourselves and we end up feeling lost and confused about where to go, what to do, and how to overcome the struggles and temptations of this life.

I had a conversation with someone a while back where I explained the peak that I had been on. I talked about feeling the presence of God in such an overwhelming way and hearing God speak for a couple of months. It was amazing to feel this way for several months at a time. I then explained that I hadn’t been feeling it as much lately and I was discouraged and I wanted to get back to that place. Their response was something to the effect of “Well you can’t feel like that always.” I disagree. I believe that everyday I can feel the presence of God in this manner as long as I am pursuing it. If I don’t pursue it, then I won’t feel that presence.

I think back to a statement that I heard from Pete Briscoe at the Right Now Conference last month. He talked about Paul being a Christ intoxicated man. I loved that statement! I believe that Paul lived out the rest of his life after his conversion clinging to the presence of God and Christ in his life. And that changed who he was and how he lived. I don’t believe his faith felt like a rollercoaster ride. If yours is, it doesn’t have to be. Let’s cling to Christ and stop having a faith that is full of highs and lows.