A Few Reminders For Our Walk With God + “Down, But Not Out”
Down, But Not Out.
*Instagram version.
Down, but not out. 👊🏼
This line came to mind during worship on Resurrection Sunday, and I’ve felt to share it since then.
In 2 Cor. 4:9, the Apostle Paul wrote that he was “cast down, but not destroyed…“ The Greek word for “cast down,“ is “to throw to the ground (where the metaphor is taken from an athlete or combatant)” and “destroyed” is “to perish; to be lost; ruined; destroyed.”
Paul says, “We’re down for the count, but we’re not dead yet!”
Maybe you’ve been there? I’ve been there at different points. Laying in the middle of the boxing ring, the wind completely knocked out of me, the blackness of being “cast down“ slowly giving way to the room swirling above me, the sound of the 10-count growing louder in my ringing ears. The image of my opponent dancing, coming increasingly into focus. “I might as well give up” resounding in my ears just as loudly as my enemy’s laugh. He’s assumed the story was over on a few occasions. But. I was “cast down,”but not destroyed. At the last second, the grace of God empowered me to crawl to the rope and pull myself up with labored breaths.
You might be down, but don’t listen to the voice that says “you’re out.” Cast down? Struck down? Maybe. But NOT destroyed!
So many in the cast of biblical characters had “struck down“ moments:
👊🏻 Joseph, in a pit and dungeon….
👊🏾 Moses, on the backside of the desert…
👊🏻 Hezekiah, facing the verbal assaults of and under siege of the Asyrians…
👊🏻 Daniel, in a lions den…
👊🏽 Paul and Silas, in a prison, whipped and beaten at midnight…
👊🏻 Peter, hearing the cock crow after fulfilling Jesus’ prophecy that we he would deny Him three times…
👊🏿 Esther, orphaned in a foreign land…
👊🏼 David, in caves, running from Saul…
👊🏻 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in a fiery furnace…
👊🏾 Sampson, with a haircut, grinding at the mill…
👊🏿 Job, facing the devastation of loss and grief… 👊🏼 Jesus, on a cross and in a tomb…
They were DOWN, but NOT OUT!
And, you or I?
👊🏻 Facing season changes?
👊🏾 Loss of loved ones?
👊🏻 The voices of enemy and flesh saying, “You might as well give up?”
👊🏿 Wrestling through more questions than answers?
👊🏾 Processing loss, grief, failure or uncertainty? 👊🏽 Feeling disconnected, overlooked, abandoned?
👊🏿 Persecuted?
👊🏻 Facing diagnosis or chronic illness?
👊🏾 Trying to walk the road back to God?
👊🏽 Figuring out “what next?“
We are joining that long list of God’s people who were “struck down, but not destroyed.“ We are being added to the record of those gone before us who were “down, but not out!“
“Rejoice not against me, oh, mine enemy. For when I fall, I shall arise.” (Micah 7:8)
I can hear those words echoing from Jesus’ tomb… “Rejoice not against me, oh mine enemy…” I’m down, but I’m not out!!!!!” 👊🏼
And I hear those words echoing from our lives… “Rejoice not against me, oh my enemy… The ceiling might be circling above me… The memory of your boxing gloves is slowly coming into focus, and I hear your maniacal laugh, but I’m just down, not out.”
“Down” is not an epitaph. Crawl to the ropes. Pull yourself up, by the grace of God, one more time.
“Struck down, but not destroyed.”
👊🏻 Down, but NOT out.
“I shall not die but live, and declare the works of the Lord.” Psalm 118:17 👊🏼🙌🏻