The “Down” Principle

Something seemingly inevitable finally happened this week–I experienced hacking.  My blog, starting around 4:00 am Monday, went down and did not come up again until around lunchtime today.  And, if I’m honest about it, I’ve never found myself wanting to post more than I did when the blog was down; in fact, I feel as if I became almost obsessed with the reality that I was unable to post, and all because some anonymous someone with mal intent made the decision to intervene into the affairs of others.

My new-found gratitude for the freedom to once again express my thoughts regarding God/life (which are truly one and same for me) has prompted me to reflect on the undeniable impact of being “down” in this life.  You see, I never even came close to appreciating physical wellness as much as I should have, until I became critically ill–until I found myself down.  Similarly, I don’t think I ever really even began to grasp what an amazing man my father was and how he impacted my life–until his life down here was over.  I can say the very same thing about precious people I’ve known, like my beloved friend Jane, who have changed their address from earth to Heaven after a hard-fought battle with some form of disease.

There’s just something about being down that seems to force us to look up as we never have before.  I have to believe that our terribly flawed predecessors,  Adam and Eve, experienced this principle of “down,” as they came to the gut-wrenching realization that they’d been had and that their once open and unfettered fellowship with their Creator had been forever changed.  I can only imagine how very sweet the memories of their old times with God became to them after they tasted the results of a fallen realm–a realm in which there was suddenly a huge gap between them and their precious Lord with whom they had once walked side by side in a lush garden full of fruit too magnificent for us to imagine.

Yes, since the beginning of man, the principle of “down” does seem hard to build a case against, most especially when we take a look at Jesus’ teaching when he lived among us.  We are told by Jesus, and clearly so, to humble ourselves if we desire to be lifted up, to bow low in order to be exalted.  And Christ didn’t just say so–he did so.  He did so as he healed lepers, a bleeding woman, a widow’s dead/only son.  He did so as he washed his disciples’ dirty feet and as he allowed himself to be arrested, condemned and crucified between criminals.  Yes, he was a king, the King, but he died a commoner’s death, all by choice.

Our down states are seldom our choice.  In fact, I’ve found that we often tend to even remove ourselves from our fellow man or woman when he or she is down; because, not only do we dislike being in that state, we seem to dislike being around others who are.  Our Christ, though, teaches us a much different standard.   For Jesus, the “down and out” crowd was/is the “in” crowd.  Once again, this King who died a common death and then resurrected in an anything-but-common manner turned the paradigm of this world upside down.  And he waits for us to courageously step out to do the very same thing–to humble ourselves and bow low so we will be in exactly the position we should be when he finally does return.