You know the story – you’re four people back at the grocery store checkout. The drive-thru at the coffee shop wraps around the building. Or everyone’s favorite: the dreaded day at the MVD. We grow so impatient as we wait. But none of those compare to what can seem like a lifetime of waiting on God.
Waiting on God ascribes to God the glory of being all to us.
Andrew Murray, Waiting on God
What if the very thing we’re waiting for will be our undoing?
We read about Jesus’ death on a dark Friday afternoon. While most of us who identify as followers of Jesus would have loved to have walked in the shoes of Jesus’ disciples, that is a day I would never want to experience. How defeating must it have been to have seen the death of my king and savior? The one whose arrival I had long awaited, whose promises healed my mortal wounds, but whose death dealt my final blow. Unless we were there, we could not fully understand what they lost.
Think for a minute about someone or something you waited on for a long time, only to be let down. It won’t take long for a specific instance to rise above the others.
Pause and allow that to consume you.
Now multiply that by a million, but it still doesn’t measure up. The pill the disciples swallowed that day was beyond anything we will ever understand. At that moment, death and its sting took over.
As Friday’s light dimmed, so did the hope that had long shown brightly in the lives of Jesus’ disciples. What they thought to be their redemption, their ticket from a life of brokenness, is now broken. As they awoke the next day, they may have wished it a bad dream only to realize that Saturday was even darker than the day before.
But we know that’s not how the story ends. We know that just two days later, Jesus overcame death, and the disciples’ hopes in Jesus weren’t in vain. And while they had momentary darkness, the light returned brighter than ever before. That’s what hindsight does for us; it allows us to look back and see the whole story, not just sludge through the muck and mire.
I remind you of all this so that you can gain hope for the hardships, trials, and pain you may currently be experiencing. Regardless of what your Saturday consists of and how slowly Sunday seems to be coming, the truth is that it will come. Jesus overcame, and so can you.
In the end, all that matters is that we are safe in the hands of the one who overcame death. Take this to heart as you cope with your Saturday, whether that entails today or in the future.
By no means do I mean to make light of your grief or hardship; those are very real. But, in light of Jesus’ resurrection, we take hope that the story won’t end in hardship.
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:16-18
May you take heart, knowing you are safe in the hands of Him who overcame death. And may you know that the light that breaks through the darkness is the very light that gives us life.
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