Seventh-day Adventist® Church

Have you ever done something you haven't tried for years? I went roller-skating this evening. I was never too good, or confident, at roller-skating when I was a teenager. Ice-skating was the more regular mode of wrestling with gravity. And I wasn't much good at that either.

So this evening my family attended a birthday party at a roller-skating rink. My kids did well; I reminded some of my muscles they have to work for a living, and my wife weaved through the shuffling crowd with grace and style, reliving her teenage years.

My daughter got in the car to come home and announced how many times she managed to fall over. I had spotted others who toppled the balance between stability and velocity. I know from past experience that when you start to go, your fall ranges from an elegant drop to an Olympic gymnastic routine. Your world can turn upside-down.

We have a danger in our relationship with God of turning things upside-down too. That is, getting things wrong, mixed up, ending up on our back.

Isaiah 29: 13-16 (NIV) describes this as a warning.
The Lord says:
‘These people come near to me with their mouth
and honour me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
Their worship of me
is based on merely human rules they have been taught.
Therefore once more I will astound these people
with wonder upon wonder;
the wisdom of the wise will perish,
the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish.’
Woe to those who go to great depths
to hide their plans from the Lord,
who do their work in darkness and think,
‘Who sees us? Who will know?’
You turn things upside down,
as if the potter were thought to be like the clay!
Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it,
‘You did not make me’?
Can the pot say to the potter,
‘You know nothing’?

God knows us as our maker. God loves us. God wants to develop a regular contact with us. God wants us to be in His presence. We can't hide anything from God. And worse still, we can say the right things in worship, but we don't really have our heart in it! But there's no fooling God.

But there is hope. Vs 22-24 read:
Therefore this is what the Lord, who redeemed Abraham, says to the descendants of Jacob:
‘No longer will Jacob be ashamed;
no longer will their faces grow pale.
When they see among them their children,
the work of my hands,
they will keep my name holy;
they will acknowledge the holiness of the Holy One of Jacob,
and will stand in awe of the God of Israel.
Those who are wayward in spirit will gain understanding;
those who complain will accept instruction.’

If you find your life, your spiritual life, has been hollow, mixed up, in reverse, upside-down, why not try the formula above? Keep God's name holy, distinct, revered, special enough to tell others about. Acknowledge God in every aspect of your life. Involve God in your decisions, fears, and joys. Allow enough time in your day to stand in awe of God, to have some "you-and-God-time" together. Seek the presence of God without there being the pressure of rushing to another appointment.

Try turning your world upside-down.

-Pr Nathan Stickland