Free Falling and The Context

There are lots of things I remember from college. 

Unfortunately, very few of them are the things my family paid a fortune for me to learn. 

I learned how to use my meal card and a salad bar to feed stir-fry to my entire apartment.

I learned that sloshing pure bleach into a shower, while being the only way to clean a bathroom shared by six guys after three months of neglect, will make my coughs taste like Clorox for a week. 

I learned that if I allowed my laundry to filter down to the bottom of the laundry pile it did, quite miraculously, come out less stinky than it went in.

There is, however, a lesson I learned in college that’s proven essential to life.

It’s been worth every penny of my tuition.

Context is king.

The key to understanding everything is to understand the context surrounding it.

Here’s an example:

If I say, “it turned blue”, that could mean all sorts of things.

I could be talking about a  frostbitten toe…

or a pregnancy test.

(for the record, I am NOT talking about a pregnancy test).

I could be talking about the notorious, PC “blue screen of death”…

or the moisture indicator on the front of our middle child’s training diaper. 

You have to know the context to know which one of those scenarios I was talking about. 

And context can drastically change how you feel about something too.

Such is the case with the phrase, “Free fall”. 

Those words have some emotional punch don’t they?

If you’re wearing a parachute and are with a bunch of college friends having a reunion weekend, those words sound exciting.

If you just tripped on an exposed root on the edge of the Grand Canyon…not so exciting. 

If you just looked at your 401K, “free fall”, while accurate, may be terrifying.

If you are using those words to describe your emotional state it may be scarier still.

The context determines if those words thrill you or kill you.

And here is why that is such a great life lesson.

As a Christian, The Gospel is always the context.

God’s unfailing, unconditional, gracious and merciful love is always the theme.

And that changes everything.

So as The Moritz family, like a lot of families right now, wrestles with issues of joblessness and financial strain, we need to live as if The Gospel really is the context.

Will we still be afraid?

Sure.

But will we be excited that we have an opportunity to see God move?  Will we be emboldened as we embark on this adventure?

Absolutely.

Now, for anyone who thinks that I write that glibly, know this:

I had a friend who used to tell me this during hard times. 

I wanted to punch him.

It sounded like overly simple mind games for truly scary and difficult times.

It’s forever been the simplicity of the Gospel that is the biggest stumbling block for the minds of men.

Ironically, it can be even more of a stumbling block for us Bible Major/Professional Ministry types.

We like our coffee strong and our theology complicated.

And so it was the very simplicity of what my friend suggested that made me bristle.

But as Laura and I walked some very hard and painful roads together, and as we truly experienced what it meant to live in the context of The Gospel, we discovered that our friend was right and we can face the free fall.