Getting Rag Dolled
In the surfing world, we have our own lingo. Here’s an expression you might find interesting: getting rag dolled. After a horrible wipeout, you might hear a surfer say, “Man, that wave was so powerful it rag dolled me until I was almost out of breath.”
When a surfer wipes out on a powerful wave, sometimes crazy things happen underwater. I’ve been rag dolled more times than I can count. One time I was rag dolled so badly that when I tried to come up for air, I hit the bottom instead.
Every experienced surfer will tell you that the secret to surviving being rag dolled is to relax. I know that sounds counterintuitive, but it could save someone’s life. If a person fights the wave, trying to come up for air, they use up valuable oxygen—and the truth is, the wave will not magically cooperate with your desire to breathe.
Sometimes we get rag dolled by life. We get hit by a wave of circumstances that takes us under. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but it often does. We find ourselves thinking, Why is this happening to me?
Let’s look at this on both a micro and macro level. We’ll start with a micro situation. A couple of days ago in our Sunday morning service, everything went wrong. The video projector didn’t work, so there were no words on the screen to sing by and no sermon points or Scriptures to follow along with. As I was drawing my message to a conclusion, the sound system started popping very loudly. I had to turn my mic off and finish without it. Consequently, our recorded service on YouTube sounded awful.
Now, the younger version of Steve Bombaci would have been steaming—but I’ve learned how to relax when I’m being rag dolled. Despite the problems, I enjoyed the rest of the day. Life is too short to get angry every time things don’t go our way.
Now let’s look at a macro example of being rag dolled—this is big-wave stuff. Acts chapter 16 records a story of Paul and Silas doing missionary work in Macedonia. Things were going great until one day they took a sudden turn for the worse. Paul commanded a demon to come out of a slave girl who was harassing them. The good news was that the girl was delivered from the demon. The bad news was that Paul and Silas were arrested for this act of kindness.
Because the slave girl could no longer tell fortunes and earn money for her owners, they became enraged and pressed charges. Paul and Silas were stripped and beaten with wooden rods. After being severely beaten, they were thrown into prison. To make sure they didn’t escape, they were placed in the inner dungeon and had their feet clamped in stocks. Not only were their backs bloody from the beating, but they also endured the humiliation of being publicly beaten. This was a serious case of being rag dolled.
What did Paul and Silas do? Instead of whining and complaining—which they had every right to do—they relaxed. They prayed and sang hymns. That night, a major earthquake struck, and all the prison doors swung open. Paul talked the jailer out of taking his own life and instead saw him and his family saved and baptized before morning. What looked like a disastrous situation took a turn for God’s glory.
1 Thessalonians 5:16–18 says, “Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.”
Is life rag dolling you? Are you fighting the wave and losing air? Some of those hold-downs can last a long time. Maybe it’s time to take a different approach.
Stay close to Jesus,
Steve