Good morning!
Welcome to your morning coffee! May our Heavenly Father clear our eyes of the monotonous buildup of our day to day lives. Father help us to see you and hear you afresh today. Remind us of our daily, desperate need for your son. Inspire us to praise him and rejoice in his work in us, Father! He intimately knows the deepest hurts and struggles of our lives. And he loves us! Heavenly Father, in the name Jesus and by the Spirit, help us to find comfort in Jesus's gentle, gracious love, and love each other in the same way.
Your Morning Song: "O Come to the Altar" by Elevation Worship
Your Morning Scripture: John 11:35
Jesus wept.
...
I find myself coming back to this verse often enough that I am unsure if we've discussed it here on this devotional before. I used to know this verse only as the shortest in the Bible, giving it little thought. But in the last few years, something has changed.
Am I the only one who struggles with how many seem to be sick, or hurt, or have died? I remember hearing news of yet another tragic circumstance happening to friends and family. And I asked my wife, "was it always like this? Even when we were kids? Have things changed or did we just not notice?"
When did I become an adult? When I lived on my own? When I paid bills? When I got married? When I had kids? When I had more kids? When I got a house? It was probably all of these things together.
But when I fully realized how broken we are and how broken the world is, illness, injury, and death. That was the first time that I truly felt old. Weary. Unsettled.
It can be very overwhelming to wake up to just how brutal and broken our lives can be. The commonness and suddenness of tragedy often tugs at my heart, urging it to break again and again. How do I deal with the horrifying fullness of human suffering and grief and pain? How do deal with the terror of watching it all creep closer and closer to me and those I love?
I've said in a recent devo that I am so grateful that God gives purpose to my pain. God uses my suffering to sanctify me, that is, make me more like Jesus. But there's more to it than just that. God doesn't just make good, beautiful, transformative use of that which hurts me most.
He understands, shares, and grieves my hurt with me.
Jesus wept.
Our savior suffered just as we have. He hurt and grieved and wept just as we do. And then he freed us from an eternity of hurt and grief and weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Jesus wept for and with us.
May we live our lives full of hope and peace, daily, desperately dependent on Jesus. He who did not demand that we come to him, but instead came rushing out into the darkness to defeat, rescue, and redeem us.
Oh what a savior! He who weeps with me is he who brings me peace and fills me with eternal hope!
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