TILT!

As I was doing  some yard work the other day,I was rolling up a hose and all of a sudden saw in my spirit  a picture of a pinball table! Many of this generation may have only seen them at Dave and Buster’s but it was a very popular type of electronic game table before video games came on the scene. When playing, you try to get the ball to hit certain places as it drops down the table and sometimes if you lean too hard into it, you may lift the table too far and it’s sensor sends up a loud buzz and blazes the words: “TILT”,”TILT” all over the screen and your game abruptly ends!

In the Merriam Websters the word, “tilt” means:to cause to have an inclination, to point or thrust in or to charge against; to move or shift so as to lean or incline ,to slant, to incline, tend, or become drawn toward an opinion, course of action, or one side of a controversy; to engage in a combat with lances; to make an impetuous attack;  

As you can see, each of these descriptions could be summed up as to mean: severely reacting to something; or overreacting, going in the opposite direction. When I saw this vision I was pondering  different situations with people we have known a long time who had been disappointed, manipulated, deceived and hurt. This happens in life, But when it happens to Christian people by other wounded Christians, it really stings. And several of these folks were not letting it go and moving on but instead severely overreacting and not just throwing out the dirty bath  water, but also the baby, sink, plumbing and the whole bathroom!

This TILT mechanism is like what many believers are doing! They are ending the “game” by overreacting to things and attempting to control the ball, that causes the TILT! Some people hurt in church situations not only throw out the source of the hurt, but all possibility of it ever happening again by throwing out any and all things that look like “church”. If their pride and self-importance is big enough, they actually begin to throw out Christianity and God Himself, by buying into the common atheist by-line, “what kind of God allows me to be hurt?” And the devil has a heyday when good disciples of Jesus reject these types of hurts as part of "bearing in our bodies the sufferings of Jesus". Emotional and relational pain is real but Jesus was also mistreated, maligned, dishonored and lied about as well, remember?

In our present narcissistic culture with all the social media, people are used to being the center of attention so some actually think that applies in Kingdom life. The world orbits around God ,not us. As believers in Jesus  we have to do as He did and act as He did. We are to forgive and let go so we can then begin again believing in people again. Watch that your TILT isn’t due to your own overreaction to what happened to you and then you end up denying the Lord who bought you! 

Paul told Timothy that when we goes through these "wars" we are to hold unto our faith and a good conscience! 1 Timothy 1:19-20 (NIV) holding on to faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and so have suffered shipwreck with regard to the faith. Among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander,

Don's allow yourself into the "TILT" by overreaction to a bad situation.