The past week has been hard. I don't know what has caused the swelling and pain in my leg but I know how uncomfortable I've been, how confined to one place and how limited my mobility has been. I've needed help with the simplest tasks and have been unable to live my normal, busy life - no driving, having to work from my bedroom rather than the office, relying on someone to do things for me - not my norm, to say the least. It's only been a week. There are people with far more debilitating conditions for far longer periods of time. I'm not being a good patient. I'm not being patient in this whatever-it-is kind of season.
It seems that in my part of this world, there is an awful lot of suffering and I'm weary with it. What's going on Lord? What is the lesson in all of this? My prayer list is getting longer and longer and the needs are great: loss of loved ones, unemployment, financial difficulties, sickness, age-related mental and physical disabilities. All are challenges and raise the ultimate question of "Where is God in all this?" In all honesty, I do know where God is in all this; I couldn't pray for the dear ones on my list, trust and hope that this is a season and not a 'forever thing' without God - without the knowledge that the Lord I love is a very present help in times of trouble. He is near to the broken-hearted, he is Jehovah Rapha - the God who heals; he comforts those who mourn, he's with me in these wee hours of the morning when I can't sleep because of my own discomfort.
I think we miss the extent of God's presence with us in our suffering, we miss some of the message of the cross. There is no length to which the Lord will not go to reach his child who is suffering, lost, being led astray. Look at the cross. We pray for the Lord to have mercy, we pray for justice, we pray for healing, forgiveness, redemption, salvation. Is there a shadow over our prayers? Are we praying those things fully expecting the Lord to answer our prayers or are they words that we're not sure are being heard? Look at the cross.
I picked up one of my devotionals as I was dealing with my sleeplessness and read the verse above from Exodus. The Lord's presence is with me. Even in my sleeplessness he will give me rest: physical rest, hopefully, but spiritual rest and peace in my soul in the midst of my worries and concerns for myself and for those near to me for whom I'm praying. I cannot imagine a life apart from the presence of God. The emptiness, hopelessness and loneliness is beyond my imagination. What must it have been like for our Lord Jesus to experience that separation from his Father as he bore our sins on that cross? The one who knows his Father so intimately, so perfectly, in such unity of personhood experienced the loss of that as he became sin in order to restore us to our Father.
My pitiful complaints at 2:30 in the morning pale in comparison but the fact remains, they're real and they're important and they're not going unnoticed. The Lord has promised his presence will be with me - and it is. The Lord has promised he will give me rest - and he will, he is.
1 O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
3 You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
5 You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.
7 Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
9 If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
12 even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you. (Ps. 139)
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