I am amazed by the elasticity of kids. One minute they miss the winning goal and the next they are celebrating with ice cream sundaes. Life for them can seem so carefree. It makes me think that we should be more like our kids in so many ways. I call it the rubber band principle. A rubber band can give us so many life lessons if we just observe a few things.
One, a rubber band stretches to incredible lengths. You can pull it back and it seems to stretch forever. Then when you let it go, it simply goes back to it's original form. Life, many times, will stretch us to great lengths. From pressures around us to things pulling us in every direction, it seems like we will get bent out of shape. If we can truly have "elastic power" then no matter what life throws at us we can bounce back.
Two, a rubber band is not worth much when it does break. There are times when a rubber band gets to it's breaking point, then it will never be as good as it once was. We must never get to that place where we think things are so bad that we cannot recover. II Corinthians 4:8-9 gives us great perspective on this by telling us, "We are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed." This means that no matter how bad things may seem, we (unlike a rubber band) can choose when and where we will break. No matter what, stretch till you think that you can't anymore, then stretch some more. You are not crushed, in despair, forsaken or destroyed. With Jesus in your life, you have that "elastic power" you need to see anything through till the end.
The third lesson that we can learn is that a rubber band only has value of what it is wrapped around. Every day (except Mondays), a paper comes to my house. That paper costs 50 cents on a news stand and dollar fifty on Sundays. A rubber band wraps itself around those papers and has the value of each days edition of information. Take that same rubber band and wrap it around a wad of 100 dollar bills and that rubber band just got an upgrade. Take that same rubber band and wrap it around the arm of one of my sons and it just became priceless. When we wrap ourselves (like a rubber band) around things in this world (i.e.. jobs, relationships, etc) we only hold its value. But when we wrap ourselves around Jesus, we just gave ourselves the ultimate upgrade.
So stretch but don't break, and wrap yourself around Jesus. Hold on no matter what happens. Allow His love and mercy the opportunity to give you that "elastic power" that you need to survive a world that will stretch you to your limits. And if you do break, don't try to fix it, give it to God. Let Him make you new. After all a tied up rubber band never worked very well anyway.
