SESSION 1 - HIGHS AND LOWS

Introduction

What are highs and lows in life? How do we determine where we are at in life? Is it based on a feeling? Is it based on circumstance? Is it based on what other people tell you?

What determines them?

At the beginning of the year we started by talking about what it means to be rooted in Christ.

Colossians 2:6–7 NIV

6 So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, 7 rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

This idea stems from what it looks like to be full in Christ. It starts from the ground up.

When roots begin to grow they spread like a freeway system underground and the further they spread, the stronger the tree gets. Same is true about Mountains. When a mountain begins to lose it’s foundation, it slowly reduces in size. There was a study done that determined that half-dome loses mass a little bit every year. Meaning the rock is slowly chipping away because the nature of it’s foundation is essentially split in half.

So we start by being rooted and strong in Christ. What the passage doesn’t say is that if we are rooted in Christ everything will be great and easy.

As a matter of fact, Later in Colossians sacrifice and suffering are welcomed as things that will happen as a direct result of being in rooted in Christ though they will be done with God’s power.

We see this in the Bible going way back from Adam and Eve sinning to the earth being destroyed… but the best example I can think of when it comes to highs and lows is the example of Jeremiah.

Jeremiah was a prophet in the old Testament that was sent by God to warn the people of Isreal that judgement. He predicts the Babylonian rule and talks of the hope Israel has in Christ.

He writes of Hope and the book actually ends with a glimer of hope as the line of King David which leads to Jesus is reestablished in power.

In the midst of turmoil, Jeremiah experience the freedom that Christ would later bring.

He goes through seasons of reaching the highest of heights.

What does that look like in our lives? In your life?

For a second I want everybody to close your eyes. Think about a time in your life when you experienced a “high.”

It can be a moment of achievement.

Maybe it is the beginning of a relationship.

Maybe that moment happened when you were driving.

Think about what song was playing.

Think about what time it was or what the weather was like.

Who was with you?

What were you doing?

Paint the picture in your head and hold onto that for a second.

Open your eyes.

It feels good to reminisce doesn’t it?

Let’s here some. What memories came to mind?

When I did this exercise I thought of what is was like to see Michelle walk down the aisle for the very first time and I thought to myself “how did I get so lucky?”

The moment is meant to provoke a feeling right?

The oohs and awes and euphoria you feel when thinking of the moment you just felt alive and like nothing in the world could strip that away from you. The moment is so great that we chase after that feeling again and again and oftentimes fail.

Jeremiah failed trying to find this moment more than he didn’t.

He had a notoriously bad ministry.

See the people of Israel would be told of the judgment coming and they would get upset and in one instance even kidnap Jeremiah and keep him in Eqypt. So Jeremiah gets upset. He wrestles with God and in some instances complains to God asking why would you let this happen.

Jeremiah experienced more lows than he did highs.

We talk about lows as small moments in time. But for some of us it is so much longer than that.

Everybody close your eyes

Think about a time where you felt low in life.

What was happening that made you feel that way?

Was it something that someone else did?

Was it self inflicted?

What triggers it?

What emotions does it make you feel?

Is it a memory you suppress because it brings up too much pain or anger?

Open your eyes

It’s probably not hard to think of something is it?

I can give you guys countless examples of lows in my life. One of the greatest of these was after I completed my first semester at Biola. I had failed half my classes, I was told I might not be able to come back to school which meant leaving behind friends, Michelle, schooling. Everything I had been working towards since I poured my heart and soul and energy into my future was suddenly up in the air. It was self-inflicted and I started to doubt myself. I started to feel lost. My relationships with friends and family and Michelle took a hit because I kept telling myself I wasn’t good enough. I never identified it then, but I was probably depressed. The pressures of that lasted through my second semester and even into the next year up until I changed my major and started to focus my reliance on God more.

Lows happen, but oftentimes we can’t identify those lows until after the fact.

Why is that? Why do we struggle to see the lows in the moment?

Is it that you don’t want to identify the problem?

Or maybe you struggle to see the way out so instread of talking about it it is easier to shove it aside and worry about it later until you can no longer ignore it.

Jeremiah argued with God and complained, yet in the midst of doubt he wrote about Hope. In the midst of turmoil he wrote about peace. In a time of uncertainty, he found certainty in the promise of a new Christ.

We will all experience highs and lows. We all go through waves of feeling like we are stuck in a valley or on the top of the mountain.

Or perhaps you are somewhere in between.

The first step in this process is to start by asking yourself where am I right now? Am I in the middle of the wall face trying to reach the top? Am I at the valley floor starting at a mountain that seems impossible to climb? Am i at the top of the mountain trying desperately to not let this feeling slip?

Where are you in your accent to the mountain top?

So everybody close your eyes again.

Ask yourself, where am I?

What are the circumstance in my life that have me feeling the way I feel?

What am I hiding that is keeping me from feeling the way I did when I was on the mountain top?

Is it me?

Is because of what others have done?

Where am I?

Once you have spent time and have identified where you are at, there are sticky notes by this white board and and this is a mountain drawn on it. When you are ready, I want you to write your name down on the sticky note and identify where you land this chart.

There is no judgment here. There is no shame in where we are at. If you are at the top, or the bottom, or 3/4 of the way up it doesn’t matter. the goal is to identify “where are you?”

Were going to start playing some music and I want to invite you to come up.