Posted by Adeliyn • Apr 11, 2023
Pausing. Waiting. Without anything to distract you from the waiting. Hard isn’t it? We, who have been so accustomed to living busy, fast, distracted lives. So when something forces life as you know it to a halt, it can feel like crashing into a wall without having the brakes on, then you are just stuck there for days, weeks, months, even years. You wonder if God is there. You wonder if God even cares.
Jesus may not go through the same questions that you have in this moment but He most definitely knows what it is like to truly accept what is truly difficult, and be in agony waiting on God. We often summarise Jesus’s life as a child who was born in Bethlehem, died on the cross and rose on the third day. We forget Jesus who knew His purpose right from the day He was born, waited for 30 years before starting ministry, waited and spent 40 days in the heat and cold of a desert without food while being tempted by the devil, waited and spent 3.5 years doing ministry, then subjected Himself to the physical torture and humiliation during His trial all the way to His crucifixion, waiting for His physical body to finally fail and breathe His last. We forget He waited and still chose to become the worst possible thing (bearing the sins of the world and thus becoming sin itself) to Himself and God the Father because that was His purpose from the start.
We forget that Jesus knew all this and still struggled greatly in the waiting. He even pleaded to God in the Garden of Gethsemane to take the cup of suffering and be in so much mental and spiritual agony that while praying and waiting on God, sweat mixed with blood came out of his body. We forget that God really did turn away from Jesus as He took on all the sins of the world, to which Jesus cried out “My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me?” on the cross. We forget that Jesus went to Hades and waited on God to be risen back into life.
We forget because we do not like pain and suffering. We forget because we do not like waiting. But when we choose to forget the parts we don’t like, we also forget that God was there the whole time. We forget that while Jesus struggled during His time on earth that God the Father was with Him. Even as Jesus knew long before He came to earth, that He was going to be subjected to all sorts of insults, pain and torture because that it was the only way God’s creation can be saved, God was there with Jesus the entire time. We forget that Jesus knows first hand every possible pain and suffering we have as human beings because He has lived the human life, and yet remained without sin.
As you are waiting in your circumstance, know that Jesus understands you in this moment. One thing for sure, Jesus understands your pain very well, and that if you allow Him to, He will attend to you. He who became sin for the sake of His creation is with you in your moments of suffering. Let Him minister to you. May you know His presence intimately, His comfort and peace come upon you, restore you and give you rest and strength to carry on. I hope you find solace in the One who understands your pain more intimately than any other human being can.
If you are not in a place of pain as of now, I like to invite you to ponder on the words. Don’t wait to be a place of pain to slow down and wait on the Lord. Cultivate your dependence, and temper your trust and faith in God while in the good times so that when the bad times comes you have a good foundation to stand on.
