Over the cliff?

He’s rich. He’s famous. He’s got ‘the girl.’ But, yesterday he drove his Cadillac Escalade over a cliff! It’s a bizarre story about a retired football great, Junior Seau. After being arrested and charged with felony assault for allegedly slapping around his girlfriend, Seau literally went over the edge. Was it rage, confusion, shame, guilt, or ‘just an accident’ as he now claims? We’ll never know for sure, but my guess is that, at least for a few minutes, life became overwhelming. The gap between expectations and reality yawned too widely and he made a choice to escape; except that he survived the plunge with minor injuries!

Disappointment with life is everyone’s experience some of the time. We plan for one outcome, only to find ourselves dealing with unforeseen circumstances. When we cannot change it, when it’s ‘out of control,’ the temptation to act irrationally grows in us. That’s one of the reasons that so many people go totally off track in the 4th or 5th decade of life. After getting the education, finding a spouse, raising two kids, and paying the mortgage they come face to face with the fact that life is not what they hoped it might be, that their dreams are just that. Reality becomes a straitjacket from which they struggle to escape.

There is another way. God invites us to trust Him, to mature beyond our dreams of success and let Him move us into a life that is significant. While some deal with disappointment with a turn to the wild side, those who look up, choose to invest themselves in things that really matter. What are they? The Scripture says, "These three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." (1 Corinthians 13:13, NIV)

When we respond to the Spirit’s invitation to trust Christ with our lives (faith!) we will never be disappointed. He cannot fail! I am not suggesting He will give us all of our dreams, but He will keep His word to us. This gives us an unfailing hope, the promise of eternal life. The grave loses its terrors for it is the transit point from the temporal world to the Father’s house.

In Christ we find love to live for! The love of which a million songs are written is passing. The full calendar of divorce courts testifies to that sad fact. The things we love break or dim in value. The love of God only grows more precious with time. Adding to the beauty is that fact that His love for us, when we embrace it, gives us a depth of character that allows us to absorb life’s disappointments without going over the edge.

Here’s how the Message reads. Take this thought with you today.
"When the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled. When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good. We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright!

We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!


But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation:
Trust steadily in God,
hope unswervingly,
love extravagantly.
And the best of the three is love." (1 Corinthians 13:10-13, The Message)
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The love of God is greater far,
Than tongue or pen can ever tell,
It goes beyond the highest star
And reaches to the lowest hell;
The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave His Son to win;
His erring child He reconciled
And pardoned from his sin.

O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure,
The saints' and angels' song.

The Love Of God
Lehman, Frederick M.
© Public Domain