As I reflected on the significance of this day, I noticed a few things. When life looks and feels like it’s turned to crap, it can be extremely hard to remember the life generating powers of fertiliser. During the hardest times of my own life, I easily forget that I have come through many dark tunnels before. That’s because when I’m in the middle of a particularly long tunnel, I can’t see anything in any direction, let alone the light that could otherwise direct me. This means I forget about all the tunnels I’ve been in before or what I thought I learned in them. And when I can’t even see which way is forward it becomes incredibly difficult to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
These tunnel traipsing times require me to exercise a faith that can evade me when I need it most. One that goes beyond the words of my lips or my laptop, to reach the steps of my feet. This is a faith in myself, my lived experience and the God I can’t always see, hear, feel or understand.
As I often forget any helpful truths while deep within a tunnel, I am grateful for the annual reminder of Easter. Not for what Jesus endured but for the truths it reveals that still stand today. On Easter Friday it looked like a serious case of game over. Yet by the Sunday it became apparent that God is indeed a man of His word. He is also the unseen worker behind the scenes, no matter how grim the front stage looks. And he turned the ultimate low into the ultimate high within three days. Three really is a magic and holy number.
Back to our own present day lives where the tunnels can last a lot longer than three days. This in turn can make it a lot harder to keep trusting that things will change or that we will feel something other than sorrow when it looks and feels like we never will.
Therefore, every Easter reminds us that no matter how bleak any situation is, God is working in ways we cannot see or know, to help us come through to a new reality. That’s all well and good when the new reality is one that we’ve longed and prayed for. These instances are easy to follow up with celebrations.
But if it is a new reality that we did not want or even actively and fervently prayed not to have, it requires a whole different level of faith. Fortunately for us, in the face of the unfortunate, the story of Easter reminds us that God promises through the act of Jesus, to always BE with us. We don’t have to go it alone. And there’s no better teammate than the Almighty. He doesn’t promise to always DO what we want him to and even warns us that we will have trouble. But he also encourages us that he overcame the worst experience imaginable. He offers to help us do the same by trusting His promise to always BE with us; as the unseen source of strength and support. I know when I’ve been stuck in the murky depths of despair, I haven’t always wanted to trust Him or turn to Him. This is because I have felt hurt and confused that He had allowed a situation that broke my heart to happen. Yet whenever I come through a tunnel and turn to look back, I see a myriad of ways in which He was with me every step.
Like the disciples, I often don’t believe what God says about Himself until I begin to see and sense it for myself! And even then, I can give that great doubter Thomas a run for his denarius. When my own Day 1 hits in whatever form, I can easily get stunned into a state of stuckness in the tunnel of Day 2. In there I lose sight of the God who promises me that Day will 3 come. And so, I think my own challenge now is to try and actively take God at His word during the equivalent of my Day 2 tunnel experiences. Maybe then I would lean on Him enough to let Him carry the load. Maybe that way, together we could utilise His tunnel vision and even reach day 3 a little earlier. Time will tell. Hopefully quite a bit of it before the next tunnel please Lord!
Praise God that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel 🙏we Have to trust the Lord 🙏xxx