Time is moving faster than light these days. The sun keeps setting on tear stained faces and somehow with every warm sunrise we feel hope to keep moving, keep believing, keep hoping. I have been stretching my hands to heaven these months reminding God of who He says He is as we travail for the ones we love.
“You are a Father to the Fatherless and a protector of widows.”
“You are Jehovah Jireh. Jehovah Shiloh. Jehovah Rapha.
It’s not Him who needs to be reminded, but me. I feel His Spirit in my chest. I know it’s the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead and I have hope only because of this as I sit with the torture and rape and abuse that has ravaged the hearts of my friends. God has so gently reminded me that Jesus was still and cold in a grave and life came to Him after three days and that same life has been promised over us now.
That same Spirit lives within us now.
I wonder how life might change if we believed that.
It can be hard to believe when you stare demons in the face and watch them have control over the ones you love. It can be hard to believe as I enter dark alleyways and dimly lit rooms and watch naked women parade like cattle in front of lust-crazed men. It can be hard to believe when the ones you have loved and fought battles with for years enter a deep night of the soul and you have no answers.
What do you say when one details the demonic ritual abuse done to children? What is the answer to the wailing, “WHO AM I?” when the grief of a robbed identity blindsides your friend in the dark night hours? If God protects the Fatherless why is a young Mother murdered leaving a small two year old boy? What do we say when the loss of belonging and satanic identity sweeps a soul into great ocean waves of loss and grief? What is our response when tension tinges the words to our spouse and teammates?
I have often wanted to run.
God always catches me as soon as I turn from raging sorrow and uncomfortable conflicts and turns me back to face it.
“Do you believe that the same power that raised Jesus from a cold and dead grave lives within you?”
I think I am starting to believe. What I do believe is that the blood of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit is our only hope. The devil is not meandering around without answers these days. He is pointed, strategic, and intentional in everything he does globally, in our community, and personally. If we do not develop a faith backbone to counteract His darkness we will be overcome. We won’t thrive without developing spiritual resilience in the trenches.
Many people run.
We can chose to stay and wrestle and learn.
Last night I was very tired after a long Monday of groceries and laundry and children. My very good friend came to help me make dinner and hold Rhema and played a song she wrote. I wept with the beauty of her words. Another friend came by in a crisis again.
Can God redeem a life ravaged by the devil for so many years that even their physical body is destroyed? Can He come into our weaknesses and sins and tensions in our churches and marriages and do something supernatural? Did Jesus really rise from the dead and give us that same Spirit when He left this earth?
I don’t see Him well in the long days of disappointment and grief, but I would rather die wrestling in the trenches with real questions than to live an apathetic life spilling words with no shoe leather. I would rather die being truthful than afraid for my reputation. I would rather die proximal to suffering than to slip quietly from a life disassociated from the reality of pain on earth. I would rather see the power of the resurrection up close and personal than to just talk about it from pulpits. I would rather invite that Spirit to transform my sharp tongue then to run from the weariness of the fight for my friends.
The most fully alive life we can live is completely truthful and scarily proximal to pain. One cannot simply dance into deep emotions when the plot twists into pleasure. Our hearts must stay soft to grief to have the capacity to truly rejoice. It can feel like risky business to keep coming close and grasping hands and questions we have no answers for, but the most treacherous decision for our spiritual and emotional wellbeing is to keep forging distance in discomfort because we will never fully see God in a self-protected reality.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ came to a cold and dead body. No one was trying to say Jesus wasn’t dead. The resurrection of Jesus can flow through us today when we stop trying to live like there is no death, when we die like a kernel of wheat in the discomfort of soil we don’t understand, when we die to our own desires in the long wrestling hours with our friends, and when we step close to marriage tensions and hurts.
When we stop second guessing ourselves and truly believe that it is His power in us that can change a life, anything is possible.
There really aren’t perfect people to face the demons of this world, just humble people that refuse to run because they are captivated by the beauty of Jesus in hard places. There really aren’t many spiritual giants, just ordinary souls who have stood long in the trenches of a battle they didn’t understand, taking orders from a King who always wins. And once they see over and over how He wins they grow a backbone that the devil can’t easily break.
Maybe the devil can distract and torment and discourage us too easily up close because we have run from what the power of the Spirit can do up close. We want to live in an eternal supernatural peace without being truthful and God has never worked that way. The ones proclaiming that Jesus never died didn’t see the resurrection. The ones of us so adept at sidestepping sorrow won’t see a resurrection. That’s why I am pushing in my heels, slamming my faith stake into a rocky soil, and lifting an exhausted cry to heaven right now.
If Jesus is alive, all of this hell on earth can be met with heaven. If Jesus is alive and in me, I will see deep personal transformation. If Jesus is truly alive, we have nothing to fear and everything to lose if we don’t step into the fray of our deepest realities.
Go have the conversation you have been avoiding. Go grab the hand of the person you least understand and lean in closer when they are trying to explain. Walk up to the person screaming in anger and hold them close in the genuine love of the Spirit. Put words to your deepest fears and ask God what the truth is. Stop living in a self-protected reality and you will start feeling what you have always wanted to feel. A heart soft to sorrow, but warm with hope and alive to love.
Last night I was in my kitchen making a warm comfort meal of mashed potatoes and ground beef gravy. There is no better start to dinner then a large pat of butter, some small diced onions and a hand full of fresh herbs from the balcony all caramelising in my best pan. My friend who has been in a deep wilderness of the soul came behind me just to hug me as she played music God had given her. Tears brimmed my eyes as I let out a holy exhale of worship. Thank you Jesus. Later evening I entered the dingy door of another brothel and looked up to meet the face of my friend who is trying to leave. We were both shocked to see each other. I clasped her hand as she wept.
I like to think of the two hands of God reaching into our world, sorrow and hope. The one hand is scarred and carries the identity of “man of sorrows.” It holds us in our grief and pain. The other is reaching for us solidly; stable and unrelenting. It is the hand of hope. When we are grasping the hand of sorrow we are proximal enough to reach for the hand of hope. It’s always there, a steady and resilient anchor that settles us enough to wait peacefully for heaven.
I’m waiting Jesus. Have mercy and come to us.
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
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