Life Often Feels Like a Roller Coaster Ride

Admit it, life is sometimes like a roller coaster. One minute you are slowly chugging up the hill and then the next minute you are plummeting down the other side at breakneck speed with the g-forces pushing you into your seat. Then, suddenly, the ride hits a bump in the track, and you are lifted out of your seat and you feel as if you are about to be launched into the air. And then the ride comes to a screeching halt. You get off dazed and dizzy only to get in line once again. Sound familiar?

The fastest wooden roller coaster in the world is Lightning Rod, located at Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, which hits speeds of 73 mph. Kings Island’s Son of Beast held the previous record at 78 mph, however after several major incidences, it was demolished in 2012. (We rode this coaster soon after it opened in 2000 and it was a truly unforgettable two minutes and twenty seconds.) Those speeds pale in comparison to the fastest steel roaster coaster, Formula Rossa, located at Ferrari World in Dubai, which reaches a maximum speed of 149 mph. Due to its extreme speed, riders are required to wear goggles.

Six Flags America (New Jersey) houses both Goliath, which has the steepest (85 degrees) and largest vertical (180 feet) drop for wooden coasters, and Kingda Ka, which while “only” reaching a maximum speed of 128 mph, has a mind boggling vertical drop of 418 feet, the longest drop for any roller coaster in the world!   

Did you know that when a roller coaster is speeding up, the force you feel is the seat pushing your body forward but because of the body’s inertia, you feel a force in front of you which pushes you into the seat? And then as the coaster reaches the top of a hill, inertia lifts you up out of the seat while the coaster car begins to descend, creating that moment of “air time.”

While we tend to be happy or sad, enthusiastic or dispirited, hopeful or discouraged, energized or tired, based upon whether the roller coaster of life is traveling up the hill, down the hill, or around a turn, one thing remains the same through it all – God is a good and faithful and loving God, worthy of our unending praise. Psalm 107:1 reads like this, “Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his lovingkindess [goodness] is everlasting.”

And when David pretended to be insane in order to get out from under Saul’s intentions to murder him, here is what he wrote after being allowed to flee, found in Psalm 34:1, “I will bless the LORD at all times, his praise will continually be in my mouth.”

[Psalm 34 is an acrostic praise psalm, meaning that each new verse starts with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet, which consists of 22 letters, all consonants. 22 also represents the number of books in the earliest Jewish canon. The Hebrew Bible – Torah (Teaching), Nevi’im (Prophets), Ketuvim (Writings) – consists of 24 books. Today, the Protestant Old Testament has 39 books. Confused? Don’t be. Today’s canon separates books that were originally combined – such as, the minor prophets were considered one book and Kings, Samuel, Chronicles were each one book not two as in today’s OT. And to muddy the water more, the Catholic Old Testament has an additional 7 deuterocanonical books not included in the Protestant version.]

So, today, whether you are chugging up the hill or speeding down the hill, whipping around a turn, being pushed into your seat or lifted out of your seat, take time to praise and worship God! There is a saying that goes like this… In the happy moments praise God, in the difficult moments seek God, in the quiet moments trust God, in the painful moments trust God, in every moment thank God.