Running up a downward escalator


Call me Buddy the Elf, but I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with escalators. I remember the first time I successfully overcame my fear enough to leap onto one of these department-store magic carpets—picture 8-year-old Miss America waving victoriously as she mysteriously ascends above the crowds on the ground floor. But as I’ve gotten older, escalators have lost some of the paparazzi. They’re terrifying chunks of metal that never stop moving. I mean, I could die on one of those things, and it wouldn’t stop. Sure, they’ll get you where you’re going—but only if you get on them in the first place and pick one that’s headed in the right direction. Once, when no one was watching, I tried to run up a downward escalator with my younger brother. I was only 11, but I won’t forget how frustrating and exhausting it was.  

Sometimes, life feels like that: a looming, ever-descending escalator that I’m trying to climb. It never stops moving, and takes no pity on those who fall behind. 

Every day I walk past hundreds of fellow students, rushing from class to class. We stretch our academic credit loads, grab food on-the-go, pick up too many shifts to pay the bills, and check our Facebooks incessantly. We stoically endure Monday through Thursday just so we can get to Friday.  But when it arrives, another Monday is just around the corner. We don’t really know where we’re headed, but we push through—life won’t stop for anything or anyone.

Lately, there have been many mornings where I pry myself out of bed, look out my 12th floor window, and wonder: is today “just another day”? Disappointments, failures, and anxieties invade my mind with a thick fog that keeps me from seeing my God clearly. I’m exhausted. The words of the psalmist David reverberate: “How long, O Lord? Will you hide yourself forever? Remember how short my time is! For what vanity you have created all the children of man! What man can live and never see death? Who can deliver his soul from the power of Sheol [ultimate, eternal death]?” (Psalm 89:46a-48, ESV)

Two nights ago, I resolved that there must be a better way. So I turned to the ultimate user-manual for life. (After all, escalators are only great if you use them correctly.) I grabbed my big black Bible and started flipping, but was detoured when the pages cracked open to 1 Corinthians 15. I was floored by verse 58: “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” It was as if God was saying “Guess what?! There is something that is ‘not in vain’ in life—it’s found in investing in Me.”

It gets even better. The words “steadfast” and “immovable” sounded great to someone trying to run up a downward escalator. I had to back up and check out that “Therefore” (meaning “because of what has been previously stated”).

Verses 19-20 of the chapter are defending the fact and importance of Christ’s resurrection: “If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. BUT in fact Christ HAS been raised from the dead…” In other words, God was saying, “You don’t need to be pitied. You have hope!” Verse 56-58 wrapped it up: “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”


In despair, David asked “Who can deliver [man’s] soul from the power of Sheol?” Because of Christ’s sacrificial death and resurrection, the ultimate death (separation from God) that we deserve is defeated! There is victory “through our Lord Jesus Christ” when we take that by faith, and that promise is enough to make us “steadfast”—even when life feels like a scramble up a never-ending, downward escalator. 

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