Do You Sometimes Feel ‘Tore Up From the Floor Up’?

Since I often listen to some powerful messages on Christian radio, from time to time certain terms or phrases stick in my mind. One example was the speaker – I think it was Dr. Tony Evans – who talked about feeling “tore up from the floor up.” ‘Yep,’ I thought, ‘I’ve known that feeling well.’

 

Maybe that’s a phrase you’re familiar with, but it struck a chord with me. I don’t recall the exact context of his comment, but we live in a broken world, and its cracks are showing more pronounced by the day. If you want to ruin your day practically before it starts, just turn on the news when you wake up. Between the latest Covid-19 scares, natural disasters, climate change declarations, grim economic reports, wars and rumors of wars, there’s enough to keep our anxiety levels maxed out.

 

Then we have our normal lives. Things can seem to be sailing along smoothly until some unexpected crisis jolts us out of our reverie and we’re plunged into uncertainty, maybe even despair. Health, finances, and relationships have a particularly annoying way of doing that. I think of a pastor in another state who’s been faithfully carrying out his calling, only to learn his teen-aged son is suffering from a devastating, potentially life-threatening disease.

 

So yes, it’s not unusual to feel “tore up from the floor up.”

 

How do we handle this? Do we just “deal with it” as best we can or “suck it up,” as they say in the sports world? Or do we scream and shout, snipping at every unsuspecting individual who has the misfortune of passing our way? Should we fall into a fetal position and wallow in self-pity?

 

One of the benefits of reading the Scriptures is they present us with an honest, unvarnished look at people, including a man described as having “a heart after God,” Israel’s King David. We’d think that being a king would be a fairly comfortable position, but he too understood very well the “tore up from the ground up” sensation.

 

Psalm 5, which he wrote, starts off with these words: “Give ear to my words, O Lord, consider my sighing. Listen to my cry for help, my King and my God, for to you I pray.” Sighing? Crying for help? This doesn’t sound like a man, despite his lofty position, who felt he had things all under control, does it?

 

Consider David’s words in the next two psalms: 

“O Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your wrath. Be merciful to me, Lord, for I am faint; O Lord, heal me, for my bones are in agony. My soul is in anguish. How long, O Lord, how long?” (Psalm 6:1-3).

“O Lord my God, I take refuge in you; save and deliver me from all who pursue me, or they will tear me like a lion and rip me to pieces with no one to rescue me” (Psalm 7:1-2).

 

Reading these and other passages like it make me think, ‘Wow. And I think I have it bad!’ 

 

Thankfully, in his writings King David doesn’t leave us there, cowering in fear and desperation and panic. He always points to his source for hope, comfort, assurance and safety – the Lord, Jehovah God. At the end of Psalm 5, for example, he concludes:

“But let all who take refuge in [the Lord] be glad; let them ever sing for joy. Spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may rejoice in you. For surely, O Lord, you bless the righteous, your surround them with your favor as with a shield” (Psalm 5:11-12).

 

He makes similar declarations in the subsequent psalms: “The Lord has heard my cry for mercy; the Lord accepts my prayer” (Psalm 6:9), and “My shield is God Most High, who saves the upright in heart…. I will give thanks to the Lord because of his righteousness and will sing praise to the name of the Lord Most High” (Psalm 7:10,17).

 

What these and countless other passages in the Bible tell me is whenever I encounter those “tore up from the floor up” moments of my life, I need to take my eyes off the circumstances I can’t control and look instead to the God who is in control of the circumstances. 

 

‘Why is this happening?’ I might wonder, without ever knowing the answer. ‘What am I to do?’ I might frantically ask, and the Lord’s answer might be, “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I’ve got this. You just watch.”

As a verse from another psalm assures me, “The Lord is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation” (Psalm 118:14). If I can remember that, no matter what is happening around me, our city, the nation or even around the world, I’m reminded there’s no reason to fear. God is still on His throne, and isn’t going to relinquish His sovereign role and control anytime soon. 

Who Knows What a Day Will Bring?

Two weeks ago today, countless thousands of residents across Alabama, Northwest Georgia and Southeastern Tennessee were hunkered down as wave after wave of tornadoes stormed through this region. To me, it ranks alongside the two-foot blizzard of March 1993 as the most momentous weather days for our area.

Most of us survived the day with little more than the inconvenience of power outages, disrupted communications and a few trees downed. But more than 300 people lost their lives. Thousands more had their homes destroyed or seriously damaged. For them, April 27, 2011 will be their own “date that will live in infamy,” to borrow President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s unforgettable quote.

Two days after the storms I drove to Atlanta for a day of meetings. On my drive back home, traffic near Exit 348 at Ringgold, Ga. – where much of the tornado carnage occurred – had slowed to a crawl, almost in silent homage for those who had died or suffered great losses. One road sign read, “Ringgold Historic District.” Many of the historic structures had been swept away.

Ironically, several days later the weekly edition of “Monday Manna,” a business devotional I write and edit, was distributed around the world entitled, “Deep Roots for Weathering Life’s Storms.” I had prepared that particular commentary two months earlier, observing that having a spiritual root system anchored by faith in Jesus Christ can enable us to endure the great challenges of life.

Reflecting on “the day of the tornadoes,” there’s another lesson to be learned. For days, weather experts had warned of an impending major storm, but no one anticipated an event spawning 259 tornadoes across the region in a single day. Many people awoke that morning expecting to stick close to home for safety; few thought their lives could be changed forever.

Perhaps that is why Jesus said, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow…. Each day has enough troubles of its own” (Matthew 6:34).

April 27 also served as a reminder to cherish each day we don’t have to cope with horrific storms, whatever forms they take. “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118:24).