It sometimes seems that we bounce from one crisis to another like children on a trampoline. The highs provide us with great joys, but the lows are devastating.
It’s hard for us to remember in these days of instant communication, but over thirty years ago when I was at university, my main form of communication with Garry was by post. He would read letters I’d written which captured a particular mood and would seek to respond to that mood when he replied. Of course, by the time he read the letter, the mood had probably changed and certainly by the time I received his letter, it was usually all but forgotten, making communication a little awkward at times!
Moods are notoriously unreliable. We yo-yo from ecstasy to despair as quickly as we can bounce high in the air and then land on the trampoline. Moods depend on a whole host of circumstances – sunshine, rain, feelings of health and happiness, broken relationships, holidays, workloads, to name but a few – and on a whole gamut of feelings. External and internal factors all affect our moods.
We praise God, however, not simply depending on our mood, but because we choose by an act of the will to do so: ‘I will bless the Lord forever.’ (Ps 34:1) In English, the future tense is expressed through the form ‘I will’, and it is also by a deliberate choice that we determine how we respond to life’s ups and downs. No one lives ‘accidentally’ as a Christian; it involves a deliberate decision, a choice to follow God and His ways, regardless of how we feel.
Don’t expect to live life permanently on a trampoline but know that Jesus gives stability. As the song says about yo-yos, they’re ‘fun to see, but not to be/ Being a yo-yo’s not for me.’ (Garry Turner) Live life instead with the steadfastness of a consecrated will that’s fixed on God.