I bet you’ve had days that feel like you’re on a roller coaster ride.  One day you are on the mountaintop, all fired up for the Lord who seems to be with you there and then and your cup runneth over.  The next day, you’re in a valley, dark and dreary.

Apostles Peter, Paul and John had that experience:  one day they were on the Mount and Jesus was transfigured.  They saw him in his glory talking with Moses and Elijah. Eternity and the divine were right before their eyes. Power and majesty were within reach.  A few hours later, they were in the valley and they were powerless to help cure a boy who was plagued by an evil spirit that made him sick with seizures.

David was like that, too. From the shadows of solitude in Adullam, he was able to conquer his impulse: he did not kill Saul who lay sleeping near the mouth of  the very cave David was hiding in.  It was a glorious display of wisdom and integrity for the shepherd who would be king. The next chapter, his kingly majesty would trip over the petty cruelty of the fool, Nabal.

David was all set to kill Nabal and all that pertained to Nabal because of an insult, when just a chapter back, David refused to put his sword through the man Saul who had attempted to kill him numerous times.

Regarding the spiritual life: there are some days, when our prayers are intense, and the answers are quick, and miracles unfold before the ‘Amen.’  But those days are few because there are more days in between when there just isn’t anything happening to us and we seem stunted for we have stopped growing.  It is then that a small and steady panic slowly spreads inside us that we may have strayed from the narrow way which explains why we feel so empty and so powerless.

We always want to leap from height to height, from glory to glory.  We think this is what it means to grow in grace and to grow our faith. We mistake the abundance of miracles as the perfect climate to grow faith.  Remember that during Jesus’ earthly ministry, even the abundance of miracles did not induce any faith to grow in the Jewish population.

When nothing is happening that should cause spiritual excitement in the every day life, we feel dejected, as though we have been left out of the ball, uninvited to the spiritual festivities.

It is more difficult to be a worshipful saint in the valley than on the mountaintop. Mountaintops are not the place to grow one’s faith.  It is when we feel that things are out of control for we have careered down the slope only to get stuck in the mire, there is the place where faith grows.

It is so easy to presume that God approves of us when the outer circumstances of our lives are bright and sunny.  It is easier to think that the high road is where we are meant to be.  Any turn for the worse in our circumstances we take as a sign of God’s disapproval.

So while we are there stuck in the middle of nowhere with nothing good in sight and no hope of escape or rescue, we cry, we whine, we stomp our feet and shake our fist.  We blame ourselves, we think ourselves fools and totally without discernment. Then we ask God why, demanding that He explain to us why He treats us so shabbily. But God will not answer.  So we go about whimpering.  Or, we grit our teeth and muster all the force of our will to climb up the steep slope from the height where we fell. Thus we exhaust ourselves.  Like a fly caught in a room with a clear glass window pane, we hit the pane over and over trying to escape the room to go out into the sunshine.

When we lie bruised and broken, unable to move, this is when faith grows. When we have fully exhausted ourselves, when we come to the end of ourselves this is where faith begins to root.  When we begin to loathe trusting in ourselves and in what we can do, this is the only time we are emptied of all that is not faith.  It is then that God will fill the empty cup of our lives.

Yes, life is a roller coaster sometimes….thank God for roller-coasters and for valleys.