Nothing
argues as fiercely against the presence of God as the unbending hardships we
face. They press against us like pointed
spears and we wonder when our deliverance will come. We wait and pray and cry out for help and yet
the oppression remains and we wonder what sort of God would allow what we
face. The Christian community is filled
with silent mourners who have grown weary of praying. Sometimes they rise up against God and
bitterly denounce Him. Other times they
simply sneer when given spiritual platitudes that sound good only in
theory. Our world is broken and filled
with shame and sorrow and we must face the facts as they are. Our children's hearts are rubbed raw by their
disappointments and our friends sigh without relief in sight. Is it any wonder that God is ignored today in
the very circles where we would expect His name to be praised? There is within us though a cry rising up; a
mourning hope that waits for God with the expectancy of a child. Like the blind man on the side of the road calling
out to Jesus, we wait also for Him. With
the prayer of the woman whose bleeding nearly drove her mad, we reach out to
Christ. The amazing part of God that we
overlook is that He too was, as the King James translation puts it, "despised
and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as
it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not." (Isaiah 53:3)
In the Garden of Gethsemane our Lord admitted to His disciples, "My
soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death." (Matthew 26: 38 NIV) God did not drop us down into a universe
where suffering and sorrow continue and refuse to let them both hammer Him
also. As David silently hid in the cave
with his men, Christ also huddles with us in our sorrow and pain and waits with
us for it to end. The day is coming when
we shall exclaim triumphantly that we are "more than conquerors through
Him who loved us" but for now the faith of many is weak and the suffering
brought on by a sin marred and Satan infiltrated world stands opposed to our
victory cry. The miracle of our Lord's
crucifixion and resurrection is that our Savior is not aloof and His
encouragement not mere cliché. We too
shall overcome this world and in the dark of night, our Lord comes to us with a
tender touch of love and comfort that somehow carries us past our sorrow and
lifts our spirits with supernatural joy and peace.
Peace
I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives.
Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. John 14:27 NIV
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