Life is a series of peaks and valleys, ups and downs, highs and lows. Following Jesus is a journey filled with twists and turns, green pastures and icy mountain passes. Sometimes the sun is shining, sometimes dark clouds cover the sky.
Like everything else in life, being a Christian is difficult. If it were easy, everyone would do it. But some Christians think that the life of faith is supposed to be mostly easy and happy. Many have been taught that there are three categories to describe the Christian life: you’re either growing, stagnant, or backsliding. We are told that our faith is either strong, stuck, or slipping. But is the only legitimate spiritual life one that is perpetually going up and up?
In his book The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis talks about the “law of undulation,” or the reality that life is a series or peaks and valleys, or as he says, “peaks and troughs.” One day you feel close to Jesus, the next you wonder if he is real. One season you’re on the mountain, the next you are in the trough. Screwtape (a high-raking demon) tells Wormwood (his lower-level nephew) that the troughs are great places to tempt Christians:
“There is an even better way of exploiting a trough; I mean through the patient’s own thoughts about it. As always, the first step is to keep knowledge out of his mind. Do not let him suspect the law of undulation. Let him assume that the first ardours of his conversion might have been expected to last, and ought to have lasted, forever, and that this present dryness is an equally permanent condition.”
Screwtape tells Wormwood to tempt Christians to think that their spiritual life should always feel like a mountaintop experience, and to tempt them to expect that seasons of dryness or doubt or deconstruction will never come to an end.
In his book Walking through Deconstruction, Ian Harber says that modern evangelicalism has kept the “law of undulation” out of our minds “and made us think that our initial spiritual fervor was going to last forever. And in seasons where the emotions and the confidence feel far from us, we similarly think that dryness will last forever as well.” But, Harber says, “This simply isn’t true. We are a people who are perpetually in process, and the undulation of life is an inescapable aspect of our humanity.” In other words, we must remember that every journey encounters peaks and valleys.
But how do we get through the valleys? By continuing to walk. And by not giving up on faith without a fight. Harber again, “Giving up in a trough is the easy way out. Asking questions, wrestling, and fighting to find God in the midst of it, trusting his promise that he is with you in the valley and that goodness and mercy will follow you all the days of your life, that one day another peak may come – that is an exercise of faith.”
This Easter season, you may be skipping through a beautiful field of lilies and daffodils. Or you may be slogging through a dry and barren wilderness. Wherever you are in your journey with Jesus, remember that it is a journey. All sorts of things happen on a journey. Some good, some not. Some planned, some unexpected. But the journey continues nonetheless.
Yet, as Christians, we understand that we are not walking aimlessly toward some unknown end. Rather, we know that our journey ends in a Garden-City Paradise where all things are forever new. Because of Jesus’ resurrection, we know that death and despair and depression and disease will not have the last word. Evil will be exposed and undone, and all the sad things will become untrue. So keep walking. We are almost home.
On the Journey, With You,
Pastor John