Have you ever played the game chutes and ladders?
Its that child game that every kid used to play way back when…. You know…the player moves his pawn the number of spaces that the spinner indicates. If the pawn lands on a square that has a picture of the top of a chute, then player must slide down the chute to the square at which it ends. It is considered to be a setback in the game. If a player lands on a ladder he is allowed to move his pawn to the square at the top of the ladder, which will greatly help his position in the game. Ultimately getting to the top and winning the game.
When I was little I loved this game. I typically always won the board games (my sister would say that most of the time I cheated though), but climbing the ladder was always so exciting for me… If I went past the square with the feared slide I was so pumped!!! As soon as someone else went down the chute and I was headed up the ladder, it meant I was well on my way!!! But the moment I had to go down the dreadful chute though I remember being so upset and immediately started trying to figure out how long it was going to be before I got back to where I was and what my next strategy would be.
I haven’t slept well all month in Laos. Even on the Race you are faced with daily difficulties. Living in community 24/7 is hard, choosing to be positive is hard, expectations are hard, wanting to be home, and relationships back home…. It adds up and ultimately consumes the mind; forcing you minimal hours of needed sleep. But particularly the other night I distinctly woke straight up in my bed and this game was on my mind. I haven’t thought about the game since I was a child. I woke up pondering that childhood game, and thinking about how much that relates to life.
My life.
I began to look at all the ladders in my life, and even so all the chutes that I have faced. Many times I brought the chutes upon myself. I thought about how long it took me to get back to where I am now and what I had to go through to get to this point. I thought about just How far away I really was at one point and just how easy it would have been if at moments of choice I would of climbed the ladders holding on to hope, rather than falling back down chute. I know chutes outside my control are going to happen. That’s how we grow. I wouldn’t be here right now if had it not been for the chutes.
Life is filled with highs, the highest of highs, but it’s also filled with the lowest of lows. Most of the time when something great happens, it is followed by something that sets us back. It’s often those chutes that make us stronger and really what potentially helps us get up those ladders. We all have the joyous ladders we climb, but we also have the weeping chutes that send us down, down, down.
We make choices in life and based on our decisions and we either climb the ladder of life, or chute down with a set back.
Sometimes I believe God gives us chutes that are really meant for ladders in the long run…
We keep praying that God will give us a ladder, and that He wont let us land on another chute. What we perceive to be a chute, however just may really be a ladder, but the ONLY way to really win is to
TRUST.
Sometimes when fear overwhelms us, we again stumble down that chute, praying to Jesus to help us where we are. Sometimes it’s just much easier to slide back down than it is to climb back up. Most of the time it seems there are far more chutes than ladders in life to climb.
I remember getting all the way to the top, one roll away from winning the game one time, and I landed on that darn chute that took me back to the beginning of the game.
But Remember in life…
it never really takes you all the way back to the beginning. It takes you back, but never to square one.
No matter what set back you face in life, it’s never completely back to the start.
How we chose to handle the ups and downs are really what makes us individuals. And makes us stronger. Choosing to trust Jesus through the good and the bad is the most important part of it all. He never promised it was going to be easy, but He did promise it would be worth it…
So….
Choose to accept the slides
And to Celebrate the ladders
I am going to.
“For the mountains may be removed and the hills may shake,
But My lovingkindness will not be removed from you,
And My covenant of peace will not be shaken,”
Says the LORD who has compassion on you.
Isaiah 54:10
Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday.
Psalm 37:4-6
