Day 21 ( tipping point)

I was walking the dog down by the dam yesterday morning - there's a weir at one end with some mesh fencing across it to stop large pieces of debris from getting downstream.  A large branch/small tree trunk had managed to work its way through a hole in the mesh and was teetering over the edge of the weir.  As I glanced at it I heard the words  ' tipping point'.  And I knew that this was to be the subject of the blog today.

However, as I thought about the two words all day and waited to get more information/illustration/ useful hints as to what it was all about...... nothing!   So here I sit at the laptop hoping that as I type I will gain some miraculous revelation as to what its all about.   There are two things which have vaguely come to mind.  One is the penny falls machine in the amusement arcade.  Put the pennies in, watch the bar push coins ever closer to the edge, watch a few pile up and teeter on the brink for what seems like ages and then .... whoosh! Ten pence tips over the edge and you rejoice, despite having spent forty pence in the process  😊   We have all seen those machines - there's even a game show on the telly called Tipping Point which is basically a huge arcade machine pushing counters over the edge.

Then there is the scientific thing - a fulcrum, a lever, a point of no return.  The moment where the balance shifts and what was going up now starts to come down.

OK.  We get that.  So what is the application and what does it have to do with Advent?   Ummmm..... hang on, I think something is appearing from out of the murk of my brain ....

I think perhaps there are two sorts of tipping points in our lives.  The first is like the penny falls.  Where we feel that we have been pushed right to the edge and we are only being held by others around us and any minute now something is going to happen to send us over into the abyss.   I think most of us will have had times in our lives when we have felt like that.  Circumstances just keep pushing and pushing.  People are difficult, finances are tight, opportunities are limited, hope is fading and demands on us are relentless.  We are just one tiny coin in a huge pile of coins and we feel we have no value to anyone.

God say no.

God says you are valuable because you are imprinted with an image of the Sovereign.  You carry His mark and therefore his authority.  He wants you out of the machine and in His pocket where he can spend you as He sees fit.  I hesitate to say this because I dont want to push the analogy too far, but perhaps for some of us the way out of the machine is to actually go over the edge and be caught by the everlasting arms which are always underneath and all around us.   Perhaps for others of us the trick is not getting put into the machine in the first place! Life is not a random game of chance,  and its not a gamble.  If that's how your life feels right now then maybe you are not in the right place  -you might well be stuck in the machine.


The second sort of tipping point is the see saw.   For some reason they always get the poor dogs to do this in those agility class obstacle courses.  Creep up slowly until the thing is level and the tipping point is reached, teeter precariously for a second and then begin the descent, having to adjust balance etc in the process.  This seems to be a more active and participatory thing than the coin scenario.  We are moving forward of our own volition rather than being pushed. It's uphill and we know at some point there will come a scary moment when the balance will shift - and the only way to find out where that point is is to keep on moving forward.   The see saw is an obstacle - but it is one we can get over with a bit of courage a bit of confidence and some good technique ( practice makes perfect)  In the picture the dog's owner is cheering him on and waiting for him at the end of the seesaw.  I'd like to think that's how God deals with us.  Not necessarily removing the obstacle, but cheering for us as we negotiate it.

In both scenarios the tipping point is the point of no return.  The coin is being ' pushed over the edge' which Im pretty sure is not a good thing.  The dog however is over half way through the challenge and its all downhill after that.  The Master is waiting at the bottom.  The tipping point for the dog is a good thing.

Jesus came into the world to show us our value, to take us out of the machinery of the world and put us in His pocket so He can spend us extravagantly.  We are the only currency He has 😊 If you know someone who is teetering on the edge today then pray that you will be there to catch them when they fall and that they will find their way into the hands of God and not just get put back into the machine to suffer the same thing all over again.   Jesus also came to walk with us through the challenges of life.  So if everything is an uphill struggle right now, be reassured that there is a tipping point somewhere up ahead where you might feel a bit wobbly for a while, but thereafter its all downhill and into the arms of Jesus who is waiting for you with a ' well done!'


Or perhaps all of that is a load of codswallop.   If you guys have any more coherent thoughts than mine please do share them.  Always appreciate your feedback  xx