“So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.”- Galatians 4:7 (ESV)
“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.” “- Eleanor Roosevelt
Rising 264 feet above the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, George Washington Gale Ferris’ wheel was the “landmark of the fair.” Ferris, a graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a Pittsburgh bridge builder, designed his wheel to rotate on a 71-ton, 45.5 foot axle supported by two 140-foot steel towers. The wheel had 36 ‘boxes’, each the size of train cars. Each car had 40 revolving chairs and a capacity of 60. As many as 38,000 passengers a day paid 50 cents to ride the first Ferris wheel. A Chicago Daily Tribune article from June 22, 1893 described the experience:
“In thirty minutes two revolutions of the wheel had been completed and the first carloads were ready to step out again on the ‘too, too solid earth.’ ”
Even though the towers supporting the Ferris Wheel were anchored in thirty feet of concrete, passengers remained apprehensive because control was in the hands of the wheel operator. Perhaps they clutched a revolving chair armrest or a standing rider for stability. Max Lucado points out that, at its core, fear is a perceived loss of control. When life spins aimlessly or uncontrollably, we desperately cling to a component of life we can manage. Max describes a specific form of spiritual amnesia:
“Destructive anxiety subtracts God from the future, faces uncertainties with no faith, tallies up the challenges of the day without entering God into the equation. Worry is the darkroom where negatives become glossy prints.”
You’ve been knocked down by your vocation loss. But you are a survivor! Like Joseph during his imprisonment in Egypt, your anchor is a deep-seated, stabilizing belief in the sovereignty of God. You can bounce back with God’s help. Let go of what has been and embrace the new thing God offers. God is present in your crisis. Keep calm and carry on. You’re no longer a slave to fear; you are a child of God. Max Lucado offers this faith-sustaining insight:
“You’re embedded with the presence of God. Don’t measure your life by your ability; measure it by God’s.”
