The day was fairly typical, the duties fairly in line and the success factor was there. Accomplishments were actually piling up and I was beginning to feel that the day would be one of accumulative achievement. I was pushing forward to complete that “one” burdensome task, that if performed my day would be totally satisfying, BUT then it happened. A hesitant knock at my office door and a request to be spoken to in a semiprivate fashion. My messenger looked nearly gray with shock when he began to unfold one more personal tragedy that friends, families and acquaintances would have to face this day.
Grief can rush in like a venomous dart and penetrate the superfluous happiness of a moment with its numbing neurotoxin, leaving a chaotic trail of tears festering around its mark. Everything that I was at that moment was reduced to a pile of worthless skepticism and unutterable, unremarkable dribble. Not a single word that I would say could satisfy the mountain of misunderstanding that was blocking my view to grace and peace.
Another close friend had decided there wasn't anyone worth calling to get advise on whether or not to close the last chapter in his life. He left his peers with images of smiles and “everything is OK”, only to splash his own demise all over their pleasant visions of who they hoped he was. We all carried bits and pieces of the pain filled puzzle that now lay before us all. We all knew a few sordid secrets to the potentiality of this horrendous event; but couldn't even imagine that these secrets even remotely added up to the final investment. All we could do was share the typical verbs of sorrow and shame one with another, only to part company and face our wounds of “why couldn't we see it coming?”. (Please,Pray this is real).
HERE COMES THE CROSS-OVER: When the Crucifixion went down, there is no doubt that the helplessness in those dark days following the Cross would remind the Apostles of the failures, the denials, the correction, the hesitation, and the sleepiness. Even the Mount of Transfiguration experience would bring no comfort(and Jesus even said, don't talk about this until after my resurrection). All of our experience and memories will not remove the mountain of misunderstanding and disappointment because these momentary intangible things are always overshadowed by the looming reality that causes unbelief.
Take a walk back to the scene after the mount experience …The boys could not cure a man's son afflicted by a “mute” demon and they couldn't figure out “Why?”...listen to the words of scripture: Matthew 17:17-21 “Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him hither to me. And Jesus rebuked the devil; and he departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very hour. Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out? And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting”.
Faith will stay kneeing beside Jesus and starving the misunderstanding until the mountain is removed.
I do not have to have a miracle, I do not have to have an answer ...I have to have Jesus. I will not settle for less when these mountains of sorrow and shame arise … I must have Him, I need Him in all His comforting and healing power.
Psalm 121 is found so many times in the memory cards at funeral homes … but it is not for the dead. For the “dead in Christ” have Him and the “dead without Christ” will never be comforted. We, who are alive in Him, with mountains left to us in times of grief, need this Psalm. “ I will lift up my eyes to the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the LORD which made the Heavens and the earth.” I need You. You desire me. Here I am. You have me. I am yours. Amen.
HLFA,
Jeff