I am a relatively recent roller coaster enthusiast. Seeking to overcome old fears and start a new hobby as I began my working career, I started spending many of my vacation days from work at theme parks. Last summer, I was fortunate to spend two days at a coaster lover's paradise: Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio. With seventeen roller coasters, Cedar Point is tied with Six Flags Magic Mountain for the most coasters at any one park in the world.
Then, while I was having lunch in one of the restaurants at Cedar Point, I started to think.
At Cedar Point, many people were waiting over an hour for Raptor, in search of a thrill for their senses. Like many other rides of its type, Raptor can deliver some of the greatest thrills of this generation of theme park rides. And if a ride on Top Thrill Dragster doesn't give you a great adrenaline rush, your heart might not be beating. But 20 years from now, another ride could greatly outdo Dragster.
On these rides, your heart pounds for a couple minutes at the most. Then what?
You go back in line, perhaps to a different ride, in search of the next thrill.
Maybe you will be thrilled again; maybe not.
And at the end of the day, real life continues. If you have a job or are in school, you go back to "Adam's curse".
After a while on the theme park circuit, rides that once seemed amazing become average. After enough time on Screamscape and YouTube, I decided that most parks were only worth the trip if they had roller coasters by B&M or Intamin (or GCI or Gravity Group, and so on).
But at the end of the day, men are only men.
They cannot build true euphoria from wood and steel - or from food, from drink, or from drugs. They work with created things that they could not create.
Their creations can bring excitement, but not joy. They can make the heart beat faster; they can cause people to make much of them. They can give people rest from their everyday labors – for a day.
Meanwhile, their souls could be starving.
And it has been this way since the Fall: the "broken cistern". Before they sinned, Adam and Eve had direct communion with Very God of Very God - the Inventor of Euphoria - the God whose Son, Jesus, holds each atom of the universe together and does not consider it to be work! Eden was perfect, untainted by the curse of sin that continues to plague the whole world to this day. The relationship between Adam and Eve and God before the Fall must have been amazing. Why would they trade it for a piece of fruit?
I also thought of trust. At Cedar Point, I thought I was going to fly off of Wicked Twister when I was sitting in the front. I was really trusting in that brake at the top to keep me from flying off and ending up falling 215+ feet to the ground, dead. On Millennium Force, I was trusting in an imperfect lift hill to not cause the train to get stuck at its 310-foot-high summit almost directly above a deep lake. And I had a healthy respect for that 300-foot drop.
Is that not like the picture we should have of the fear of God? That this cliche that we "can't live without Him" is not just a saying, but very much a reality for any believer? Do we not trust Him more than a brake, a cable, or the tests of engineers? A ride gone wrong could kill the body in a largely wasted death. We need to trust Him as the Protector of our souls, which have a far higher value than the bodies we occupy during our earthly lives.
And we trust Him not only for the eternal things, but also for the details of life: from big decisions to the vital signs of life. I continue to breathe because God has willed to give me breath. He could take it from me any second. So if I try to get through the day on my own strength, how then can I live?
Lord, do not let these rides grow dull to me. They remind me of how to express joy and passion. But You must thrill my soul to a level many times beyond that of these playthings of mankind, and give it rest and peace and satisfaction and contentment in who You are and what You have given me. It must all go back to You.
"Joy exalts what we rejoice in. If we rejoice in revenge, then we exalt the value of revenge. ... [This is] clearly sinful. But what about innocent pleasures? If we rejoice in a beautiful sunrise, what do we exalt? The sunrise? Or the Creator of the sunrise? Or both? And what makes the difference in our hearts and minds?"
- John Piper, When I Don't Desire God: How to Fight for Joy.
"He [Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by Him and for Him. He is before all things, and by Him all things hold together."
- Colossians 1:15-17 (NIV)
Its funny how God can use something as simple as a roller coaster ride to remind us that, what we try to make in terms of excitement cannot compare to the joy found in him. Roller coaster rides serve the purpose of stimulating our senses and to give us a rush. But we are only alive in Christ. We go day after day seeking purpose, and many do it through "things". But if we seek the master, then those "things" do not hold the key to happiness but we depend on the very one who created joy and who gives it. Without him, we are aimless. So I like how you brought out the truth by using such metaphoric language.
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