It is not hard to immerse yourself in the fantasy of the screen. Movie romances, which sell lots of tickets, end rather well on the screen, but the movie-goer always leaves the fantasy of the theatre to re-enter life’s realities. The movie may end with the not so subtle implication of “happily ever after for the actor pair who finally realize they are meant for one another, just as the fairytales that regaled us as children; but one has to wonder what would become of the love struck couple if the movie had continued on into the common life that follows. Gone with the Wind was one book/movie romance that did not necessarily end this way; Rhett walked off into the fog despite Scarlett’s pleas. She still has hope to get him back somehow, and her final words of the film are; “After all, tomorrow is another day.
Those six words capture well the hardest challenge to living life Christianly or well. Life is made up of anticipations, preparations, concentrations, determinations toward one or another future event: a project, a vacation, a test, a performance, a feat to be conquered. It finally comes and then, it passes. What comes next? Back to the grind of everyday life? Yes. Until another anticipation comes along which gathers you up in its current of excitement and drive to experience whatever it brings. In most every case, this too shall pass; a return to the grind. There is almost always an anticlimactic letdown after the event is concluded.
Seven of our young men at the PAYH just completed a 1500 mile Bicycle Challenge of which the readers of SFTD are well aware. Months of disciplined training preceded the Challenge and then the three grueling, physically stretching, adventuresome weeks of the event itself concluding in a celebration of victory and the joy of completion; and then. . . . . back to the old routine, not as exciting as what preceded. So it is with us all, and all of our lives, to one degree or another.
Yet, it is exactly here, in the grind of everyday routine, where your greatest challenge lies, and where even greater reward is waiting for those who learn what it means to walk wisely, to walk in the Spirit; like breathing. We know what it is to run, to race, to climb, to soar, to ride, to compete, to anticipate with a combination of fear, adventure, and joy all tangled together. But we have trouble just walking; which is what life returns to after the event that captured your attention for a time. To walk rightly in daily (common) life is the greatest challenge the Christian or non-Christian faces, and it is here where you are most vulnerable to attack and ambush from your Enemy.
The fact is no event will ever satisfy or indefinitely encourage like THE EVENT that awaits those who look or it. The Apostle Paul is not reticent to encourage you to “eagerly anticipate the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and the end of the age. We have a hard time getting our minds around this, unlike other events that stir your anticipation. But this Event is able like no other to capture your mind in walking out the “routine of today, tomorrow, and the next. Rollercoasters are fun for the minutes they last; but no one wants to live on a rollercoaster. Riding emotional and spiritual rollercoasters need not be your consignment for life. Walking in the Spirit is simply NOT a rollercoaster way of living. The posture of the man and woman described in the first paragraph of the Book of Psalms, how they walk, stand, and sit, is the every day and night posture of someone who even in the midst of suffering is still blessed and happy.
Life need not be anticlimactic after your event. As He leads you beside still waters, this can be the very place He restores your soul . . . . . .even in the “daily grind of life.

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