Life in a wheel

I woke up today with a dreadful feeling of guilt. I’ve seriously wondered if I’ve taken too much pleasure from the excitement of the days before as my family talked and dreamt about our new house. In a very strange way, picturing myself and my family in that beautiful house doesn’t seem right. A voice tells me, ‘true Christians shouldn’t and couldn’t live in a beautiful house. It can’t be God’s will!’ So there I was feeling less Christian, less godly, less righteous, more sinful for desiring what is good and pleasant to the eyes.

Questions came fast and worrying, “what if building the house was all our will and not God’s?”; “what if God wants us to stay at this two bedroom unit indefinitely?”; “what if God wants us to sell the beach block instead and buy a small three bedroom flat?”; “what if we are alone in this venture and had just assumed that God was with us?”; “what if it’s all just wishful thinking?”; “what if this and what if that?” –on and on it went and then came the tears.

Someone had said to me, “Life is a wheel, and it goes ‘round in circles.” If life is a wheel, then if I am feeling on top of the world, it could be that I’m just at the edge before hitting the ground. And because the wheel turns, everything will be okay eventually until that vicious cycle begins again. For every positive event, a negative event inevitably takes place so you dread going up that wheel of life with its’ unrelenting movement. The past haunting you incessantly, old voices condemning, the future seems bleak and taunting. You can never make it right because you have absolutely no control. You are stuck in that wheel of life with no idea if it’s going fast or slow, aimlessly from left to right, and you don’t know the difference between up or down. So what’s the point of living?

It was then I remembered my earlier days. I had the same dreadful feeling of guilt coming home from a day of just happily hanging out with my friends at school when my mother used to say, “Right! You had the time of your life, now it’s time for punishment!” It taught me that I can’t be or shouldn’t be too happy because sadness will surely come next. The happier you are the more miserable you will be; a season of laughter equals to a season of tears. That is the balance and fairness of the wheel of life. God is all to blame for what life is and what life is to become; and I am powerless to do anything about it.

As I lay there crying, I suddenly remembered the time I had said to someone that life moves forward and upwards because it was how I experienced Christ transformed my own life. JC has moved me forward and upwards, stretching me, changing me, enlarging my territory. He made my life beautiful. He made me feel beautiful. There was no guilt, no strings attached, just unconditional love. That love had saved me. That love JC offered was mine. I received it, owned it, and lived it. I didn’t see myself in that wheel of life but on a flight of stairs. I saw myself as a co-creator of my destiny because I was given a free-will when God created me. I had the choice to make, to decide either to walk up or walk down that stairs of life.

The Creator had set a choice before us and tells us to choose life over death, blessings over curses. Why would God set us choices then instruct us which choices to make? Because sadly, people still make the wrong choices.

“I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days….”.  Deuteronomy 30:19-20 (NIV)

“The thief [Satan] does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I [Jesus] have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly“.  John 10:10 (NIV)