If you don’t face your own suffering, how will you ever find rest? Real, true rest for the mind and spirit? To face your own suffering is to come uncomfortably close to Christ in Gethsemene: does the idea of Christ, the suffering servant, comfort or trouble you? The fully divine, fully human being sweating drops of blood from anguish…
Jesus left His disciples. Jesus said, “I am with you always even to the end of the age.” (Matt. 28:20). It wasn’t much long after that He was taken up into the air. He leaves. What is the most common question or statement made by a person in crisis? Where is God in this? Some days I look around and it is easy to fall into the idea that Jesus isn’t involved in some of these situations. Sometimes it is tough to see Jesus. Is He here? Is He truly with us?
You know why I’m so OK with seasons of doubt? Because no doubt ever diminished Jesus’ authority. He didn’t need dad’s permission to heal the boy. He healed the boy despite dad’s uncertainty. Mark includes the story in his bio of Jesus and in doing so highlights dad’s uncertainty to elevate Jesus authority. His sovereignty. He really has that much authority over life. Over death. Over life after death. Believe it. And not.
The Trinity is, in my experience, the ultimate collector’s plate. A gilded, limited edition Charles and Diana Wedding commemorative. Purely for admiring. Never for serious use … This is a problem … Because we love what we use. Can we really love the beauty of the Trinity if we never talk about it?
A teacher was walking among the desks of her Kindergarteners, hard at work on an art project. “What are you drawing?” she asked one little girl. “Oh, I’m drawing God,” the child replied. “You know, no one knows what God really looks like.” the teacher confided. Without looking up, the girl replied: “Well, they will in a minute!”
