What goes up must come down, unless you’re Sandra Bullock in Gravity. All pop culture references aside, with every high comes a low. I addressed this in my last post but little did I know that the subject would come to the forefront of my mind again.
I was looking through pictures and videos from last week’s Enactus competition (you can find more about that in a previous post) and especially liked one that my friend Taylor made. He’d had his GoPro camera on him all week and put all kinds of footage together to make a great recap. Rather than try to explain, here it is:
When I first watched it, I instantly noticed myself at 3:03, where you can see my jaw drop when it was announced that we had made the Final Four. But it took me until I watched it again to notice something else. Shortly after that moment I threw my arms in the air in celebration, and although it’s so quick in the video that you could miss it if you blink, I shout “thank you.” (And then proceed to start crying out of pure joy, but no shame here.) I honestly had no idea Taylor has captured that moment, and quite frankly I wouldn’t have cared if he hadn’t, because that was between me and God, even though we were on a stage in front of hundreds of people.
I remember that I specifically avoided praying that we would win anything or keep moving on through the rounds, (although I’m sure many of my teammates did) because didn’t want to be too crushed if we didn’t. So it meant even more to me that we went as far as we did. (But I did pray that we would do our best, and that we would have both humility in victory and dignity in defeat, no matter when the time for either situation came.)
It’s so easy to thank God for the big things, like winning second place in the nation, but I think that sometimes those big things cause us to lose our perspective, especially when we return to our “normal” lives afterwards. But it’s not just the amazing, mind-blowing, miraculous things that come from Him. After all,
“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”
(James 1:17)
Every good and perfect gift. Not just the awe-inspiring ones.
One of the phrases I used to hear a lot when I was in high school youth group was “spiritual high” – that feeling/mindset you get from a concert, conference, or maybe just a really good guest speaker. You feel like you can do anything, because God is just. so. awesome. And then you crash once you’re away from that stimulating, high-energy environment.
The World Race isn’t going to be some year-long spiritual high. Daily life will commence as usual, no matter what country or what setting I’m in – and that’s why it’s important to seek and thank God in the small, average, even boring things.
