February 4, 2020 – Click here to listen
Sports commentator Jim McKay used to say: “Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sports . . . the thrill of victory . . . and the agony of defeat . . . the human drama of athletic competition . . . This is ABC’s Wide World of Sports!”
Watching the aftermath of the Super Bowl this year it is easy to see what McKay was talking about. The Kansas City Chiefs’ players, fans, and coaching staff were running around like a bunch of little kids expressing unrestrained jubilance and gleefully celebrating their Super Bowl victory. The San Francisco crowd was the diametric opposite. They were utterly dejected and in mournful shock as the disturbing reality sank in that they’d just lost the Super Bowl.
Ah . . . Such is life. We sometimes win and we sometimes lose. I’ve won many battles and lost my share as well. It has taught me when I stand on Victory Peak to enjoy it to the hilt, because We cannot stand there forever. We must descend off the peak and down in the valley and indeed the pits at some point.
I used to own a mail order company and one day we received an extraordinary amount of money from UPS for the COD orders we’d sent out. I was acting giddy about it and celebrating our good fortune and my right-hand man looked somberly at me and said, “Yeah, BUT tomorrow we probably won’t receive much of anything.”
I told him that when we stand on the peak, we should enjoy it to the hilt and bask in the goodness of its shining light and warmth. I went on to tell him there would be plenty of time to be a sourpuss when we actually descended into that valley that he mentioned. It would be tantamount to someone on the Kansas City Chiefs running over to the coach as he was celebrating the Super Bowl win and telling him how difficult it would be to win another Super Bowl next year instead of joining in the celebration of the evening.
Life consists of valleys and peaks. There is no doubt that we will taste both. Enjoy your peaks when you are blessed enough to stand there and when in the valley look up and be encouraged and know that soon you will once again be standing on the peak.
I once heard an evangelist say concerning prison ministry that this type of ministry is so effective because the inmates have sunken so low that they have nowhere to look but up. Thus, they seek Jesus in the time of their trials.
Hmmm . . . Do you suppose God allows trials in our life to provide incentive to turn to Him during the dark hours?
Jonah 2:6
At the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever; yet you brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God.