When you’re down and feel like nothing, God is usually up to something just for you.

That’s a saying on a church sign outside of Philadelphia hat I edited and slightly changed and can safely say is now mine. I do that a lot. Take something that I see or hear and adopt it as “mine.” I don’t mean that I own it. I simply incorporate it into my “being” so to speak. I make it a part of me and try to live up to whatever it is that resonates with that wisdom inside of me.

Lots of folks do it by the looks of Face Book. Every time a person clicks on “Like” I believe that he or she is not only agreeing with what another person offered up, we’re wishing that we could have said the same thing. We agree with them . . . We bless them . . . We take the message in and “own it” as if it was ours.

It can work for good or the bad, though. I can’t tell you how often I agree with some political pundit, who criticizes someone from another political party, snubbing their nose at their policies or the latest round of idiocy. Yes, their message makes perfect sense from where I come from and the values I hold dear. But unless I know where the other side is coming from and the values they cherish, I can’t rightly condemn them for theirs.

When reading things on the social network, I want to adopt what like-minded friends offer me, and learn from those who challenge me to see something in a different light. It will not only help me  to grow, but to stay fresh and more youthful as I work the gray matters of the old cerebellum to keep moving. Take for example what the Kabbalists believe about the ups and down in our lives. There are three lines we follow in life: the left and the right and the one in the middle. Issac represents the left and Abraham the right, while good old Jacob is the middle one. We bounce between the left and the right, needing a bit of each to fully appreciate and live more comfortably in the center. The left is the low road, so to speak, while the right is the upper, and the center is the middle road, all of which is very similar to what I believe the Buddhist call a “middle way.”

How often have I been up in the clouds almost euphoric with all things gong splendidly only to see them tumble and knock me into the pits? Neither experience lasts too long. Change is the only constant in life and the longer we live, the more we see this truth.

So, the next time you’re down, just remember the message on the church sign and see what the cosmos has in store for  you when it teaches you a new lesson.

That might be happening just as we speak!