Thursday, July 30, 2009

Today is a new day!

So yesterday was kind of rough. I thought I had found something really great to do with my life and talents. It was going to be awesome. It fit many of the things I loved to do and the gifts that God had given me. Then my brother pointed out that it looked pretty much like a scam.

All the things that I was so excited about deflated right there. Then to top it off I got an email saying that I was not being considered for a certain job that I had applied for. And I got the email twice yesterday, like once wasn't enough. It wasn't that I really wanted that particular job, it was more the rejection itself. So for a day that started out really exciting, it fast became one of disappointment.

It was Wednesday, so that meant there were things going on at church that night. Since I really needed to be around people and to get out of the house, I pushed myself to go. When I got there, my interaction with people seemed to be all wrong. I cut Pam off at the knees when she tried to give me good information. I interrupted her and Teresa, not once but twice. It all just fed off of the anxiety and disappointment I already was experiencing.

But the message that I heard over and over was to trust. I can't tell you how many times Scott said that as he was talking about the book we were following. Trust in God. Know who you are in Christ and stand on that. Trust in God. Trust in God. Know who you are in Christ and stand on that. Things aren't necessarily what they seem. Okay, okay. You have my attention. Sometimes I can be so difficult.

Then I got home, answered some emails, fixed a bite to eat and turned on the television. There was Jesse Duplantis. And he said something that I had never heard before. It floored me and had me in tears. How could I ever dream that I, me, could be loved THAT much.

Look at John 20. Mary Magdalene had gone to the tomb after the Sabbath was over to finish the preparation of the body of Jesus. Seeing that the body was gone, she left to tell the disciples. Returning to the tomb to show some of them that he was missing, she stayed after they had left to go back home. She was crying. She went into the tomb and two angels were there and asked her why she was crying. She said that Jesus was missing and she did not know where he had been put.

Oh, how she must have been hurting. He was everything that she had put faith in. She had left everything and followed him. He had loved her with a love she had never known before. He was her security. He made her feel like she was worth everything. He was her life. Then, within days, she had seen him ripped apart, naked and nailed to a cross.

People wanted him dead. They ridiculed the one she loved. They spit on him. They pulled his hair. They ripped his back open. They stuck a sword in his side. How could this happen? How can her life fall apart so fast? Once dead, he was brought down and placed in the tomb in such a hurry because sundown was fast approaching and it was the Sabbath.

They didn't even get to prepare the body correctly. Then she had to sit and wait all night, all the next day and all night. There was nothing she could do to serve him, to take care of him, but wait. Wait and wonder. Wait and hurt. Wait and cry. Just wait.

Knowing that she could not go to the tomb till sun up when she could see, she probably went ahead and started gathering the spices and herbs for the body of Jesus during the night. I doubt if she slept much because she was so anxious to get to the tomb. She was totally caught up in the only thing she thought she could do for her Lord. And then when she got there his body was gone, like salt in an open wound. The very thing that she had been waiting to do and prepared for, she could not. Who would have thought that she wouldn't even been allowed to prepare the body. How cruel that someone took the body away. Hadn't they done enough to him?

John 20: 15-17
Then she saw Jesus, but she didn't know it was him.

"Woman," He said, "why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?"

Thinking he was the gardener, she said, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him."

Jesus said to her, "Mary."

And she turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, "Rabboni!" (which means Teacher).

Jesus said, "Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.' "

What Jesse D. pointed out last night was that Jesus had defeated evil. He had conquered death and was on his way to his Father to finish the redemption of mankind and he stopped in the middle of it to take the time out to reassure and comfort Mary. To show her what she needed to see. He stopped in the greatest event of the world for her. He didn't have to do it. He would of shown up later and shown them. But he did. He stopped. He took time out to show her he was okay. That it was all going to be alright. To let her know she didn't need to have such sorrows. To show her that the events that seemed to be were not real or true.

So he who spoke the world into being, he who knows each bird that is flying and when he falls, he who knows the secrets of the weather and the sea, and he who is love, righteousness and truth, he cares if my heart is breaking. Cares if I am anxious. Cares if I cry. And will stop the movement of all of creation to provide comfort.

Trust him who cares. Things are not all that they seem. For mighty things are working and you can have a personal relationship with the author of those works.

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