Life, doesn’t always go the way we hope.
Nobody likes to suffer. Even Jesus prayed “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” Something inside Him hoped for a less painful, less humiliating way. Yet, even knowing what was coming, He surrendered that hope.
His hope surrendered ultimately produced hope eternal.
To really know Jesus, I believe we have to know suffering…disappointment, rejection, humiliation, grief, and sorrow.
It has taken me a long time to accept this and these truths are still working themselves out in my life, but this passage means something so much deeper to me now; He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted… Isaiah 53:3-4 NIV
For me, “hope deferred” (Proverbs 13:12) has become hope surrendered. My posture before the Lord has changed to a “not my will but yours be done” posture in a deeper way than I have ever known before.
That’s not to say that I don’t have bad days. I do. I have really bad days. Throw in the towel and become an atheist days. However, I always end up with my hope surrendered.
May it become hope eternal.
Poem taken from “Streams in the Desert” November 30