animated versus animator

ever have a season where you are continuously swimming upstream? it's an experience we all have, and from what i hear from folks lately, it seems to have multiplied. it's hard not to get callus when it feels like everything is a struggle...it almost feels like life is designed to challenge us. when i saw this animation, it made me smile and frown all in the same reaction because it's really funny, but it's also really accurate to human experience. sometimes it just feels like our animator is fighting against us rather than for us. ya know? like we're the ones trying to stay alive without any outside help.

but what if we're letting the haze of everyday life blind us to what's just beyond the fog? what if just beyond the gray is a glimpse of an animator who is reaching for us, pulling us towards light, hope, and healing? maybe the experience of swimming upstream, is really a training that allows us to fight our real enemy...laziness, depression, hopelessness, anger, numbness, death. if our animator's role is to give us life, doesn't it make sense that our real enemy is the opposite of life? sure, we've all felt like we're in a battle against forces beyond our control, but what if those forces weren't our animator after all?

if you're swimming up-stream this week, make it a habit in your mind to refuse the lie that you are the animated going against your animator. in fact, start picturing the opposite that you are the animated teaming with your animator to overcome the forces of gray that dull you, tire you, exhaust you. and maybe even carry a new weapon with you as you fight. here's something worth memorizing from the scriptures "No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord."