Getting Sucked In...

This past week I got sucked in.Have you ever had this experience? Where you lose your footing –

You get busy.

You get distracted.

You get drawn in different directions.

You get in over your head.

Before too long, you find yourself making decisions and having thoughts and reacting in ways that surprise you. They enrage you. They confuse you.

I won’t go into the details of my week but what happened was I let myself get covered over by details, by stresses, and by my own drive to make sure that no one saw me as fragile in certain areas.

My drive to make sure that I looked like the leader and pastor that I wanted people to THINK I was.

Side note: I’m not talking about masking moral failures. I’m talking about something worse. I’m talking about getting overwhelmed and stressed by good, life-giving things because I tried to lead them without faith.

Craig Groeschel talks in his book Weird about how the drive to do everything and get everything done is sometimes a lack of faith.

The first thing that goes bye-bye when we get sucked in by circumstances is our faith. We begin to think “I’m in a pit. I’m up against a wall. I’m going to take it all on my shoulders and get this done.”

Welcome to Sucked In City. Population you.

We avoid being sucked in by realizing we aren’t in control of the world. And often we realize this when we are at the lowest place.

I was finishing some painting on my ceiling yesterday, trimming things up, mumbling to myself about the pit I was in and all the reasons I shouldn’t be there.

Then it happened.

The iPod shifted to “Linus & Lucy” by the Vincent Guaraldi Trio. The Charlie Brown Song.

And I exhaled all that I got sucked into. God used Linus and Lucy to bring me out of the funk. Remind me of who was in control of the universe.

When have you been sucked in? What brought you out?