The Deck Chairs of Life...

One of my favorite Peanuts cartoons starts with Lucy sitting in her five-cent psychology booth, where Charlie Brown has stopped for advice about life.

“Life is like a deck chair, Charlie Brown,” she says. “On the cruise ship of life, some people place their deck chair at the rear of the ship so they can see where they have been. Others place their deck chair at the front of the ship so they can see where they are going.” The good “doctor” looks at her puzzled client and asks, “Which way is your deck chair facing, Charlie Brown?”

Without hesitating, Charlie replies glumly, “I can’t even get my deck chair unfolded.”

Mike Yaconelli, in his book Messy Spirituality asked, "Ever felt like that? I know the feeling—especially in the spiritual walk. Everywhere I look on the cruise ship of Christianity, I see a crew of instructors, teachers, experts and gurus eager to explain God’s placement of my deck chair, but I still can’t seem to get it unfolded. No wonder when I check out the titles in a Christian bookstore, I feel like I am the only klutz in the Kingdom of God, a spiritual fool lost in a ship full of brilliant biblical thinkers, an ungodly midget in a world of spiritual giants. When I compare my life with the experts in the church, I feel sloppy and messed up in a world of immaculately dressed saints…and I’m a minister!"

Can you relate? What happens when you feel like you can’t even get your deck chair open? You long for a deeper relationship with God, you seek it, but your spiritual growth chart looks more like a kindergartners scribbles than an upward line towards God.

Or perhaps there was a time when you were going pretty good in your spiritual walk, but something huge happened and it sent you reeling. A death in the family. A divorce. An unplanned pregnancy outside of marriage. An abortion. One moment you were happily walking down the beach enjoying the view, and the next you are rolling over and over in the surf trying to get your feet back under you, a hapless victim of one of Satan’s sneaker waves that suddenly lashed out and knocked you over and then began pulling you out to sea. And you go from worrying about getting your deck chair unfolded to just wishing there were a life raft somewhere. Forget about which way you face the chair.

Do any of you know what I’m talking about here? There are times in our spiritual walk where things don’t seem so spiritual. There are times when our own messy spirituality seems to get in the way of our walk with God, causing us to question whether or not we really even know Him.

Times when you call out, but God seems so silent or distant. Times when you can’t hear the music of your soul, anymore. Times when you wish you could do better in your spiritual walk, yet lured away and enticed by your own evil desires, you end up messing up again and again, and the persistent call of the devil to just give up and be swept out to drown in a sea of despair washes over you and everything within you wants to stop trying to reach the shore and simply go with the pull of the world. It all feels so useless and pointless…and yet, in the midst of all of the pounding surf rolling us over and over, listen carefully, and you will hear a song that breathes hope. It is not a loud, raucous song. Rather it is a simple, yet persistent song of love that is meant to bring the hearer courage and hope.

It is when you feel the most hopeless, and at your weakest that God sings His song of Love to you. Actually, God is always singing His love to you, but it seems we have to be down and out before we really hear it.

But know this…No matter what you are facing, in whatever situation you find yourself, God’s Love Song will reach your need. He sings it in many situations. He does it in all sorts of ways, but the message is always the same. God loves you and wants the best for you, no matter what you’ve done or where you find yourself.  Will you let yourself believe that and rest in it today?