Deeper Longings with Melissa
16 June 2020
Hello RHC friends, lately I’ve been pondering about the idea of going through something, like if you go through something to get to the other side. And the going-through may be agonising, painful... like giving birth. You know that there’s no way that you can get to the other side - get to having this baby - without going through the pain and the agony of the childbirth. There’s no way to get around that. Or… like… writing an exam. There’s no way to get to the other side without actually sitting down and writing the exam. Or going through an illness, or even like all of us going through circuit breaker and getting through the virus situation. Yea. So, I’ve been thinking about this idea of going through - that there has to be a patience and a waiting and a trusting God for going through that which is painful and uncertain.
So I’ve been reading lately in John - the last prayer that Jesus gave to his disciples from John 12. In John 12, Jesus starts to say that his hour has now come. So in John 12:23, he says, “And Jesus answered them, ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” And chapter 12 verse 27 says, “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour.” And then Jesus continues in his teaching and prayers for the disciples in the last evening before he went to the cross in chapter 13-17. And he keeps repeating that his hour has now come and that his soul is troubled. And we all know that Jesus went through the cross - the pain and the agony of the cross - to get to the other side, where he was raised from the dead and where he gave us all life.
So this is the encouragement that I am drawing from this and that I want to encourage you all with: it’s the idea of drawing strength from Jesus and his example that he has set in going through the cross. Even though his soul was troubled, he trusted God, he trusted the Father. And he knew that on the other side, God has life for him and for all of us who trust in him. Even though there are physical things and emotional things and mental things that we all have to go through, as a nation, as a body of believers, even individuals… We have things that we just know that we have to go through. We cannot sidestep the going-through process. So… in our going through and in our fears...like, “Will I make it to the other side?” “Will God be there on the other side?” “Will things work out for good on the other side?” We can trust him, that he will go through with us to the other side, wherever our going-through is leading us. So, I want to pray for us for this.
Father God, I ask in Jesus’ name, that you will give us the strength to go through with you whatever we as a body, as a nation, as individuals, we have to go through. That we can trust you, that you will go with us, that you are going with us, that no matter what we are having to go through, that you are good and that you are steadfast and that we can trust you. In Jesus’ name, Amen.