"Spiritual Vertigo"
Why Do I Feel Upside Down in This World?
1 Corinthians 10:12,13
"So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall! No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it."
Many times in our Christian walk our minds come under spiritual attack and often the result may be the feeling of unbalance, of thoughts racing out of control or even that we feel like everything is upside down. That no matter what you do to keep your mind "up-right" and level, you keep stumbling back into the same rut. Start a diet and do good for a few days and then right back to the old way of eating. Make a New Years resolution and before long you're right back where you were before. Even in your attempts to clean house or get the yard cleaned up you just keep getting distracted from completing the job. You seem to work for hours and nothing seems to get finished.
Is your spiritual walk with the Lord "upside down? Where no matter what you try to do to feel closer to the Lord, you just seem to be tossed around going no where. And sometimes, you may even feel frustrated with God because you don't feel He even hears your prayers or cares. When your mind gets to this point do you really feel like you are spinning out of control and life's pressures seem to keep building but God seems more and more distant?
Well you may have what I call "Spiritual Vertigo". It's a condition that we all get and a mature Christian needs to learn to identify it and learn to navigate through it despite this temporary condition. I remember a time back in my flying days when I was flying the F-16 in a flight of four fighters in the weather at night and we were meeting up with the airborne tanker. It was to give us each about 4000 lbs. of jet fuel (650 gals.) so we could continue our night mission. We could get gas from the larger tanker by flying up underneath it (about 8 feet away at 300 MPH) and connecting to a boom that would allow gas to flow from the tanker to the F-16. While one aircraft was receiving fuel, the others would fly formation off the wing of the tanker.
Now this particular night there was a lot of bad weather and darkness like a black hole. I began to experience what pilots call "vertigo" while trying to hold my position on the wing of the tanker. This condition occurs when the fluid in the inner ear plays tricks on your equilibrium and everything in your head begins to tell you that you are spinning or turning. In my case I was convinced that the tanker was doing a "Loop" while we were trying to stay on his wing. Although I still had a visual contact with the other aircraft, it got so bad that I literally thought we were upside down. My heart was racing, I imagine some panic was besetting me and I felt totally out of my comfort zone in the air.
Now the solution to that problem is to stop flying formation and begin flying on your instruments. From our extensive training and experience, once our eyes are able to see the instruments and confirm the position of the aircraft, the vertigo stops and our inner ear and minds would again be in "sinc". But you can't do that when your flying formation on a tanker in the weather in the dark. You have to stay focused on the other aircraft. And you don't want to be the "Weak One" that falls off the wing or loses sight of the tanker(once again pride becomes a factor). I really didn't want to come on the radio and admit to anyone that I was experiencing a problem but there is no way to come inside the cockpit with your eyes and study the instruments. So what do you do? Just hang on till you crash?
Well, I didn't crash and I didn't die but I truly was scared to death and feeling totally out of control. In fact, when I finally called for help and declared my condition, I was told that we were flying straight and level and not doing any turns. But even that did not help. The only solution was to break formation with the aide of a wingman, clear the tanker and descend, all the while coming back into the cockpit gauges to be able to regain my stability of inner ear. Using my instruments and focusing on them allowed my mind to actually begin believing what my condition was. As my feelings of being upside down subsided, I was able to let my mind override what I thought I felt. That led to stabilizing the inner ear equilibrium. My wingman stayed with me until I was better and then we rejoined the mission with the tanker group. That's what happened and I made it through another what should have been very simple mission.
Really many of those same feelings from that night, I have experienced with "spiritual vertigo" as I described earlier. And its the same things that saved me in the aircraft that saved me with my experience with spiritual vertigo. Here are a few simple things that can help you recover from that condition:
1. You can't always avoid the situation. Life's events are going to come upon us. Jesus said we were going to have troubles but that He was going to get us through them. In 2 Tim. 2:15 Paul tells Timothy to be prepared to be an approved workman. So study the Word and know the Truth. Be trained to use the "instruments" that God has given us in his Word.
2. When it begins to happen in your life, be able to recognize your symptoms of "spiritual vertigo". When the tasks at home with the kids are getting too overwhelming, when your job requirements appear to be insurmountable, when your marriage just seems to be so upside down, when nothing seems to working with your finances...... This is the time to realize that you may be experiencing "spiritual vertigo". Your doubt(feelings) begins to override your mind or knowledge of what is true.
3. Get on the "gauges". Get in the Word. Declare the truth out loud verbally. Try to bring your mind back to a place where 1 Cor. 10:13 becomes believable. That God will always give us a way out of every situation. Verbal declaration has power over the instability of your mental thought. If you declare God's truth out loud long enough, your mental distraction will go away. This works when dealing with cravings from addiction, anger in relationships, jealousy in your family or even "hunger pains" when on a diet.
4. If it's too late and the "spiritual vertigo" is on you in full force, then don't hesitate to call out for help. Get a wingman. Call someone and tell them you need a wingman! Find someone that you can share your symptoms with and ask them to pray with you. "Is any of you in trouble? He should pray....The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective." James 5:13-16.
5. Finally, when you are stable and "on the gauges" and the affects of the vertigo have diminished....get back to the mission. You can't just go off on a spiritual "solo" flight. You have to get back to the tasks at hand and on with life as God has given you. You can't check out. You have to rejoin the tanker and keep going. Finish cleaning that house, get back to the tasks of your job, rejoin relationships with your kids or spouse.....just get back into your "mission".
So there you have it! A few simple "fighter pilot" ways to handle the "LOOPS" of life. May God's force be with you!