Stuck in a Loop

Last month Heather and I went to see “Yesterday”. It’s a movie about a struggling singer/songwriter named Jack who just can’t get a break in his musical career. And then through a strange cosmic time-warp event the world is moved into a parallel universe where the Beatle’s never existed. So, Jack begins singing Beatles songs as if they were his own, and then records them and becomes the biggest singer/songwriter in history (until he can’t live the lie anymore and comes clean and goes back to his job as a teacher, married and living happily ever after).

            The point I want to make today is that when Jack was recording all these Beatles hits he had to sing them, then play all the instruments, and then record the background tracks. This is a recording process called looping. Looping is where you record a track and just let it play over and over, and then add something new (like vocals or percussion) over top of it to create a new element to the song.

            Here’s how I think this relates to us spiritually. We can get stuck in that loop, that same rhythm that just loops over and over and over and over. If we could add something new to it we could change the tune completely, we often don’t.

            Maybe there was an event that happened in your past where you were hurt, or betrayed. And that event becomes the defining aspect of your life. You’re stuck in that loop.

            Or maybe it was the death of a loved one, or a divorce, or an end to a career that you didn’t anticipate or even see coming and you were caught off guard, knocked for a ‘loop’, or completely deflated of any desire to trust or to be engaged with others again. You’re stuck in that loop.

            Or maybe it was a diagnosis that left you reeling and confused, where were the answers to all those prayers for God’s healing? You’re stuck in that loop.

            The Hebrew people knew this as well. Exodus recounts the stories of God’s miraculous and amazing deliverance of His people from captivity in Egypt. He guides them on their trip to this new “promised land” where He would fulfill His promise to Abraham to make them a great nation, as numerous as the sand on the seashore. And when they get to the edge of the promise, they stop.

            The people who live in this land are like giants, and we are like grasshoppers compared to them! (Numbers 13).

            So, the people revert back. They lament and wish they were still in Egypt as slaves (we tend to live with a captive mentality most of the time). They even talk about how much being better being in slavery was than the situation where they were in at the time. They went back to their loop, and they were stuck (again!).

            Sometimes even the loop might have started out as a good routine, But maybe now your day is that you get up, read your Bible, go to work, come home, watch TV, go to bed, get up, read your Bible, go to work, come home, watch TV, go to bed, get up…..

            And you’re stuck in a loop.

            Loops deprive us of the joy of life. Loops keep us circling the same path when God is calling us to check out a new direction He has for us. Loops keeps us focused on how things are, or even how things used to be, rather than seeing how things could be or what God is already doing now!

            In fact, hear these words from Isaiah (this passage was written for the people of Judah as they were preparing to be sent into Babylonian exile):

This is what the Lord says—he who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters, who drew out the chariots and horses, the army and reinforcements together,
and they lay there, never to rise again, extinguished, snuffed out like a wick: “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!  Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. (Isaiah 43:16-19)

            How do you get out of a loop? You can’t change the loop that has been playing, that is in the past. But you can allow God to add in a new melody overtop of it. God says he drew you out of that past. So don’t dwell on it! God is doing a new thing. Not will do. Not might do. He is doing it, making a path, providing a provision, showing a new way, adding in a riff….

            Do you see it?