Yo-Yo Master 🪀

It's happening everywhere... from Florida to Kingston, to Tokyo and Brisbane, the COVID-19 pandemic rages on with regions experiencing a second wave, others exiting their 3rd wave, while yet others are battling their own nth wave.

With sweeping observations from country to country, you'll find that the numbers are all over the place. For some, infections are up while in other jurisdictions the infection rate has dropped significantly... and it's not just COVID numbers.  As a species we're also dealing with heat waves all over the place... and not to mention crime waves. 😩

Even within countries, cities and towns, you will find all kinds of wild fluctuations.  Residents living in fear of alarming numbers in their neighbourhoods last week, may find reprieve this week as the reported numbers take a nosedive, but then are put back on edge next week as a result of a sharp rise in the statistics.

This exhausting up and down of numbers and emotions quite frankly is reminiscent of a popular toy of yesteryear... the Yo-yo.

While its rise to prominence began in the 1960s, there was a significant popularity bump in the 1970s and a crescendo in the 1980s.

What started out as a simple toy dating back to as far as 440 B.C. (Before Christ), has seen some innovations and maturity over the years... not only in its construction, but in the flamboyance of its mastery.

Before Christ, the yo-yo was basically something that went down when you released it, then came back up and you grabbed it.  It was fun.  Admittedly, it seemed a little simple and mundane, but make no mistake, it did take some amount of mastery and can take some amount of effort to get the hang of it at first.

It's kinda like life isn't it?  When you first start out, before Christ, you find yourself in the early stages of trying to get a handle on the ups and the downs.  Perhaps eventually you do, but then it doesn't take long thereafter for the heart to start wondering: What now? What else? What next?

There are many who stop there and settle for the simplicity of shallow mastery and never press forward in life to discover the fullness of joy that awaits in life after Christ.

Have you seen what yo-yo play looks like now?  Yo-yo pioneers have truly mastered the art of taking the rhythm of the ups and downs and have pulled joy out of every spin, every twirl, every roll that a yo-yo brings.

The same is possible in your own life!

You could just resign yourself to roll with life's punches and have your emotions and optimism and joy saddle and ride the up and down waves that inevitably come your way, or like a modern-day yo-yo athlete, you can allow yourself to see the truth:  God is in control of the ups and the downs.

When you embrace the truth of God's available, unseasonal joy, you realize that ups aren't times that you merely enjoy in-between just bearing with and surviving the downs.

By the power of God's Holy Spirit, you can have joy throughout every moment of it... and as you practice to master this daily yo-yo experience, you develop a certain enviable expertise in transforming a downward trajectory into an adventurous Loop-de-loop.  Or if you've hit the grown and it seems like game-over, one well-placed tug at just the right time and in just the right way, will have you bouncing right off the floor and back into the game.

Even as servants of God, there will be seasons of victory as well as seasons of challenge, but the one thing that we must accept and believe, is that the waves of life's ups and downs have no power over the joy of life in Christ.

Let us move beyond the mundane, let us refuse to enjoy only the "up" half of our journey here on Earth.  Come let us grab this roller coaster by the bar, riding with confidence the waves of the ups and downs as we learn from the ultimate Yo-Yo Master.

“Surely God is my salvation;
I will trust and not be afraid.
The Lord, the Lord himself, is my strength and my defense;
he has become my salvation.”

(Read: Isaiah 12:2)