I experience glimpses, though.
Glimpses of hearts coming to life and redemption consuming brokenness and hands opening to the One who gives good gifts. Even in the darkness, there are glimpses of light. I have waded through some hard places this summer, and God has tenderly given me probably the best cathartic in the midst of the darkness: A new passion.
Have you ever experienced it? That glorious coming to life when your heart starts beating for a mission and breathing purpose and hope into your soul? I have known such a rebirth this summer. It has been good and invigorating and restorative. It has also been hard.
Because when your heart starts beating for a singular mission you wonder why everyone else's isn't beating in sync with yours.
Because when your passion invites doubt and questions from others, you start to wonder why you ever breathed in hope to begin with.
Because when the mission finds resistance in the tug-and-pull of mundane life, it can be discouraging.
Because creating change and initiating redemption is scary.
It is downright scary, and I can feel the talons start to close and the passion clamp down. But then I read this:
One day he got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, "Let us go across to the other side of the lake." So they set out, and as they sailed he fell asleep. And a windstorm came down on the lake, and they were filling with water and were in danger. And they went and woke him, saying, "Master, Master, we are perishing!" And he awoke and rebuked the wind and the raging waves, and they ceased, and there was a calm. He said to them, "Where is your faith?"
Luke 8:22-25a
Did you catch that? They were IN DANGER! Most would say they had every right to be afraid, to assume the worst. But then He says, I'm sure much more gently than I would have, "Where is your faith?"
Where, friends, is your faith?
In this dark and dangerous and evil world we are living in, where is your faith? Where is MY faith?
He calls us to have faith even in the most dangerous of storms.
He calls me to have faith when the winds are against me and all logic says hope is lost.
He calls us to have faith because He is so much bigger than the problems we feel like we are drowning in and the danger ever around us.
At the end of this passage it says, "They were afraid, and they marveled, saying to one another, 'Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and water, and they obey him?'" (Luke 8:25b). How interesting that they were still afraid. But they weren't afraid because of a dangerous storm.
They were afraid because they were reminded of WHO, not what, they should be afraid of.
He holds it all, friends. He holds all the pain and hurt and brokenness in the palm of His hand and He commands the winds and water. We don't have faith in our circumstances. There will always be horrendous brokenness and evil and people who discourage and resist.
These are good thoughts - it's sometimes so, so hard to know WHAT faith looks like in the midst of the storm. This morning in church we were in 1 Thessalonians 4, talking about grief. The difference of grieving with hope, versus grieving without hope. In both instances, grief and tears are appropriate, because our hearts our hurting, but when we are informed of Christ's death and resurrection, we can grieve knowing that there will be a day with no more tears or death or pain. That's what we look ahead to and cling to. It's that faith in something magnificently greater then these present circumstances we are experiencing. I know you know that better that almost anyone. My heart grieves for the destruction happening around the world right now. Be near, sweet Jesus.
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