Sometimes we can feel like God has left us on our own. Sometimes we can feel forsaken and forgotten by God.
Maybe we feel like God is working more in someone else’s life than our own.
Maybe we feel like God can’t hear us…or hear our heart’s desires.
Often we wonder where God is when we hurt.
Often we question if He’s really there.
Jesus felt the same way one day. In Matthew 27:45-46, Jesus is hanging on the cross…
“From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land. About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani’, which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?'”
And I think about how Jesus must have felt right then. I wonder if He thought God was going to rescue Him before death. I wonder if He wondered how this could possibly be God’s plan? I wonder if He thought God was late? I wondered if He completely lost hope right in that moment?
After Jesus gave up His Spirit it says in verse 51…
“At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split.”
Jesus willingly surrendered to God’s plan even though He didn’t understand it or see the good in it. He had to die so that the curtain of the temple could be torn, so that the earth would shake, so that the rocks would split.
He died so the curtain of the temple, the ability to enter the presence of God’s sanctuary, could be torn for you and me.
He died so that the earth would shake, that all the laws and regulations of religion would be shaken into grace, for you and me.
He died so that the rocks would split, and the door of salvation would be forever opened, for you and for me.
I wonder what glory and joy He felt when He woke up from His slumber there in the tomb and stood and walked away.
I wonder, I bet, He thought of you and me. I wonder, I bet, He couldn’t wait for us to see what just happened. I wonder, I bet, He was so glad He stayed on the cross and endured the darkness for those hopeless hours.
And maybe today you face your own darkness…it could be an unanswered prayer, a lost dream, a hopeless situation. And maybe today you just need to know that even though it feels like God is far off, maybe He is waiting for our complete surrender before He shows us the other side of the darkness.
Will you lay it down, whatever that thing is that is darkening your soul, robbing your soul, depleting your soul?
Will you lay it down, surrender it up, and give it to Jesus even if you can’t see the light on the other side?
God doesn’t show us the good stuff so that we will lay down the hard stuff. No, he asks that we lay down the hard stuff in surrender and faith, so that He can show us the good stuff.
When you feel like God is far off, remember today, that He stayed on the cross in all the darkness and all the ugly and all the pain…for you. And He stayed there to make a way for you to experience all the joy, all the peace, and all the saving grace, that only a God like Him could offer.
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