Falling Out of Rhythm
The PBS investigative series Frontline aired a
program last week entitled “Close to Home.” The focus was the
current economic downturn that has impacted an area once thought to
be impervious to such a decline—Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Streets
littered with once-thriving specialty shops catering to upper class
clientele are now approaching a fifty percent vacancy rate. One
resident shook her head repeatedly in disbelief, saying: “It’s just
not supposed to happen here!”
An opportunistic interviewee had launched a website
providing services for the unemployed. Most of its users are over
the age of 40. He observed: “It used to be that, when a man or woman
was not working, it was their own fault. But in the current economic
climate there are millions of highly-skilled individuals with a
great work ethic who find themselves unemployed through no fault of
their own.”
A man named Rob—a twenty-year veteran of corporate
Human Resources management and responsible for 7,300 employees—got a
knock on his office door back in 2008. It was his boss, who was
there to deliver his severance paperwork and request that he have
his office cleared out in ten minutes. He found it difficult to
articulate his bewilderment over such an abrupt dismissal after two
decades of loyalty. With the exception of a one-month contract, he
has spent the last sixteen months unemployed…and looking.
Another named Mike was gainfully employed as a
carpenter when things began to go downhill. His wife was diagnosed
with cancer, and entered hospice care. He then lost his job, and
fell two months behind on his mortgage. He applied for a hardship
grant, and received tacit approval contingent on employment. He
found carpentry work, but was denied the grant. Three days after his
wife died, the bank repossessed his home and dumped all his
belongings on the curb. The house for which he and his wife had paid
$125,000 was sold by the bank for $55,000. He now lives in a rented
room with his dog. In an interview, he stated: “When you fall out of
rhythm, things can get tough.”
The phrase “falling out of rhythm” as expressed by
Mike encapsulates an almost indescribable profundity. Yet we all
know exactly what it means in context. I dare say that all (if not
most) of us have experienced a falling out of rhythm at some point
in our lives when routine turned to rigor, calm to calamity, and
peace to peril. The overriding issue, however, for any child of God
who is falling out of rhythm with respect to things earthly is
whether he or she will allow that downhill trajectory to spill over
into and govern things heavenly. The biblical evidence suggests that
the former does not necessitate the latter!
Consider Joseph as an example. He was a
tender-hearted young man who was the apple of Jacob’s eye and the
recipient of heavenly visions. He was an exemplary youth living a
blessed life (i.e., one that was in rhythm) up until the day his
father sent him to Shechem to visit his brethren and bring back a
report (Genesis 37:11-36). He finally found them at Dothan, and it
was there that he began to fall out of rhythm. A first plot to kill
him was foiled by Reuben; a second by Judah. They stripped him of
his many-colored coat, cast him into a pit, and sold him to
Midianites for twenty pieces of silver. The Midianites took him down
to Egypt, and sold him to Potiphar—an officer in and captain of
Pharaoh’s guard—who became his Egyptian master (39:2). Now that’s
falling out of rhythm!
The scriptures, however, tell us that Potiphar was
cognizant of the Lord’s hand upon Joseph, so that he made Joseph
overseer of all his house and possessions. Potiphar ultimately
entrusted Joseph with every aspect of his life, and he prospered
(39:2-6). Joseph had regained a rhythm of sorts…up until the day
that Potiphar’s wife solicited him for a sexual tryst. Joseph
refused to “do this great wickedness, and sin against God”
(39:9). The rebuffed solicitations continued until finally the
scorned wife falsely accused Joseph to Potiphar, and to prison he
went (39:20). We now have a second falling out of rhythm.
It is critical to observe in both of these fallings
that “the Lord was with Joseph” (39:2, 21). No loss of favour
on the part of man can ever disannul the favor of God upon those
that trust him! Joseph regained his rhythm once again in the prison
inasmuch as the keeper of the prison turned over the entire prison
operation (and apparently that of his household) to Joseph “because
the Lord was with him” (39:23).
Joseph’s prison rhythm continued for another two
years up until the time that Pharaoh had his enigmatic dream on the
Nile River. When no one was able to interpret it, the chief butler,
a former prison inmate whom Joseph had befriended some two years
earlier, recommended to Pharaoh that he summon Joseph for dream
interpretation (41:9-13). You know the rest of the story. So at age
thirty (41:46), and after more than a decade of rhythm changes,
Joseph stood before Pharaoh as his most trusted advisor and the most
powerful political figure in the land…and perhaps the world!
The timeless lesson we
learn from Joseph is that falling out of rhythm in our earthly
sojourn is no basis for doing so in matters heavenly! Joseph fell
out of rhythm twice—pit and prison—but at no time allowed himself to
be deprived of the assurance of God’s presence. He was persuaded
that his God was working while he was falling! In like manner must
you and I embrace afresh the truth of God’s operational presence at
a time when falling out of rhythm is a potential reality for so
many!
Top |
