swing

sometimes life throws an unexpected twist at you. maybe you even saw it coming... but the twist still isn't good. David cries out in Psalm 22 Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Jesus echoes this prayer while he is being tortured to death for sins he did not commit.

so how do we respond? when all in our world is just... painful. what do we do? well very frequently, we sit. we're "waiting on the world to change" (as John Mayer melodically shares with us). and it's comfy - especially in our affluent culture where generic La-Z-Boy's are almost ubiquitous. and yes, a time of mourning and lamenting is always appropriate. if we don't take that time, we never give God the opportunity to heal us.

but what if we keep sitting? how many times does God need to "heal" us before we realize He wants us to get moving?

i think that there always comes a point in time when we must trade in our couch for a swing. when the time to grieve is over and the time to move has arrived. it's hard to trade seats. it's hard to go from a safe, comfy seat that requires nothing of us to a dangerous, dirty, rubber seat that won't function unless we put some work into it. it's hard, but it's worth it. it's actually fairly simple (stand up, go outside, take a walk, find a swing, sit, move your legs back and forth), but not easy.

so why swing? because the easy, comfortable life is never worth living - all things worth having require work. because a little bit of turbulence in our lives makes us stronger. because the longer we stay inside, the less of an impact we can make on this world. do you think you're suffering needlessly? take what you learn and DO something with it.

why swing? because sometimes when you swing, you get to say "i'm happy."

anyway, swings are more fun :-p