Gravity

 

 By Brenda Graff

What do you do when you find yourself being pulled under by a tidal wave?  Insurmountable odds facing your every moment?  How does one prepare for disaster?  Do you bank up or buck up?  I don’t care if you board, hoard, and store up in preparation for devastating circumstances…it can still catch you off guard.  Like with the devastating floods we have recently in our area this past month in Texas.  Many families unexpectedly met head on with disaster and watching their belongings and some lives swept away suddenly. 

I remember how many times, I’ve boasted at the fact that I was prepared to go through whatever God would have me experience…after all, I totally had faith in Him, I thought.  It wasn’t until in later years, I figured out what faith walking was really all about.  I am reminded of a movie I watched recently called Interstellar, a 2014 epic science fiction film starring Matthew McConaughey, playing the character of (Cooper). The film features a crew of astronauts who travel through a wormhole in search of a new home for humanity.

The scene:
Cooper and TARS (a robot) detach their shuttles into a black hole, sacrificing themselves to collect data on the singularity, and propel (co-partners) Amelia and CASE (robot) faster by reducing the ship's mass. As the shuttle falls into the black hole, gravitational forces rip it apart, ejecting Cooper into the interior, which resembles a tesseract (a four-dimensional analog of the cube).

He finds himself at first sight in fear of death unable to control the circumstance as he is witnessing and viewing into what seems to be his daughter’s room the day he was departing as she sobs on her bed more than 50 years earlier. 

He had remembered what a fellow astronaut had said to him regarding death.  “You know you’re dying when you see your kid’s faces”.  He starts frantically screaming, “No-no-no!”

Was this an illusion?  Is this the final moments before last breath?

It was a very intense, heart wrenching scene.  I watched in anticipation, this life hanging in the balance and stuck in this dark, dreadful, black hole.  

Would Cooper survive?  How will he get out?  Is there light at the end of the tunnel? 

Yes, Cooper survived, it was never his intention to stay in the black hole permanently, and eventually he reunited with his daughter, who was now on her death bed of old age.  

You see, Cooper, panicked and became so distracted and busy trying to solve a problem he basically had no control over, that he lost time and years with his daughter and son.  He arrived to her virtually non-aged due to the wormhole and time difference in dimensions.

Determined to get back to his family he didn’t give up.  He figured out a way through the black hole.  He refused to get stuck there.

How often do we find ourselves drawn in by the black holes of this life?  The gravity of grief, regret, and gargantuan fear pulls at us....persuading us to stop living, only focus on the frightening circumstances or loss.

We can get caught up in situations that are truly beyond our control, and begin to panic.  We fail to see that God sees the full picture.  We only get a glimpse.  Some tend to fear the unknown, and their future without not knowing what is going to take place.

  

It is frightening to get a phone call that is lurking with bad news.  I know, I’ve been there.  Once you get the information, what do you do with it?  Scream, cry, and shout at someone?  Kick the dog?  Drown yourself in misery and self-pity?  You might do all of these things…and it would be a normal human response at first, but I’m not advocating the kicking of any pet!  But, we must not get stuck there!  How many years are wasted in anguish, grief, unsettled anger, doubt, or FEAR?

It is all based on FEAR!  The gravitational pull of fear can rip us apart at the seams.  It can tear families apart, cause businesses, and ministries to crumble.

Fear brings out many emotions more than just anxiety.  It brings with it a multi-personality mess!  Insecurity rears its ugly head causing relational conflicts.  Sorrowful grief that last too long leads to lasting depression, and isolation in turn causing more anxiety.  

It is a vicious cycle. Anger, regret, disbelief, and insomnia become your new best friends.  It blocks the view of the light at the end of the tunnel.  

It is in those unfamiliar, unidentifiable defining moments where true faith begins to emerge.  How in the world could anyone experience light, if they had not been in darkness?  Healing if they had not been sick?  Forgiveness if they had not been forgiven?  We cannot wallow in that hole too long, otherwise, gravitational forces will rip us apart, ejecting our souls into a chronic state of confusion, doubt, and chaos.  

We don’t have to live that way.  If we could just understand that Jesus Christ, the one who loved us, more than His own life… is with us at all times.  He is there in the midnight hour when fear grips us with thoughts of “What If’s?”  

He sees every tear hit the ground,

every sigh of disappointment, every grieving moment we experience, and He is telling us DO NOT FEAR, DO NOT WORRY, DO NOT BE ANXIOUS FOR NOTHING 365 times in the Bible! Weeping may endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning. (Psalms 30:5)

Joshua 1:9
Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” Isaiah 41:10
Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Matthew 6:25-34
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. ... Psalm 139:7-10
Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. Psalm 23:4
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

Psalm 91

1 Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High
    will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
2 I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress,
    my God, in whom I trust.”

3 Surely he will save you
    from the fowler’s snare
    and from the deadly pestilence.
4 He will cover you with his feathers,
    and under his wings you will find refuge;
    his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.
5 You will not fear the terror of night,
    nor the arrow that flies by day,
6 nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness,
    nor the plague that destroys at midday.
7 A thousand may fall at your side,
    ten thousand at your right hand,
    but it will not come near you.
8 You will only observe with your eyes
    and see the punishment of the wicked.

9 If you say, “The Lord is my refuge,”
    and you make the Most High your dwelling,
10 no harm will overtake you,
    no disaster will come near your tent.
11 For he will command his angels concerning you
    to guard you in all your ways;
12 they will lift you up in their hands,
    so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.
13 You will tread on the lion and the cobra;
    you will trample the great lion and the serpent.

14 “Because he[b] loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him;
    I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.
15 He will call on me, and I will answer him;
    I will be with him in trouble,
    I will deliver him and honor him.
16 With long life I will satisfy him
    and show him my salvation.”

Brenda A. Graff / Founder of
FOOD FOR SOUL MAGAZINE