It had been an exceedingly difficult week, and I sought refuge in a mindless game on my phone. I lost.
“Are you sure you want to quit?” the game asked.
Oh, I would be glad to quit! I thought wryly, I would be so glad for all this to be over!
There are days when it’s too much. There are days one wonders what on earth God was thinking, and how His estimation of what we can bear could be so mistaken. But those are days, not lifetimes. And there is evening and there is morning, and lo—it is another day. It is another day that the Lord has made. We try to rejoice and be glad in it. Sometimes we succeed, and sometimes we do not.
The Saturday after Jesus’ death, before His resurrection, was a day folks probably weren’t singing Psalm 118 to a jaunty tune. It helps to know there were times even the people who physically walked alongside Jesus for years couldn’t make sense of things.
Sometimes it doesn’t make sense. Sometimes life just stinks.
And still. Still, Jesus hung on the cross. Still, Jesus died and conquered sin and death. Still, we are saved. Somehow our broken, bitter, pain-wracked hearts are salvaged, even when it makes no sense and hurts like hell.
“Are you sure you want to quit?” the game asked.
I guess it depends on what I’m quitting. I’d sure rather quit the pain and difficulty, the suffering and the grief. But not if it means giving up what I believe, or knowing Jesus. So I click on the little rewind button, and go back into it. I do it again, and try some more. Because perhaps I do have a mustard seed’s worth of faith, and He tells me that’s enough.
