A Prayer For Our Hearts To Be Able To Be Filled With Gratitude And Wonder Once Again

 It’s Palm Sunday tomorrow where we enter into that last week of remembering the journey Jesus Christ took to the cross where he died in place of us to pay our debt and make it possible for us to have a living and blessed relationship with God.

Jesus was nailed to two pieces of lumber that were then put in a hole and hoisted up for all to see – he was nailed to a cross.  People passed by and made comments and the whole purpose was not just execution for was shaming and torture of the worst degree.  The plan of the leaders and soldiers was to get maximum pain.

God was working behind the scenes with a bigger and better plan.  God’s plan was to gain maximum freedom and life for all who would believe.

And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life.  John 3:14-15

There’s an ancient story recorded earlier in the Bible of God’s people travelling through the desert after God has brought them out of slavery in Egypt.  When they had no water God provided it.  When they had no food he rained down food from heaven for them.  But, as we often do, they got impatient with things being what they were and not actually having completed the journey to the promised land. 

The people grew impatient with the long journey, and they began to speak against God and Moses. “Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die here in the wilderness?” they complained. “There is nothing to eat here and nothing to drink. And we hate this horrible manna!”  Numbers 21:4-5

They were punished for their complaining against God and poisonous snake bit some of them and killed them.  Suddenly they needed God again and asked Moses to pray for them.  When he did, God told Moses:

Then the Lord told him, “Make a replica of a poisonous snake and attach it to a pole. All who are bitten will live if they simply look at it!” So Moses made a snake out of bronze and attached it to a pole. Then anyone who was bitten by a snake could look at the bronze snake and be healed!  Numbers 21:8-9

This story then was a picture that Jesus used when He was explaining to the people what God’s plan was when He would be put on a cross.

And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life.  John 3:14-15

Our journey through this pandemic, and just through life, has been long and there are lots of challenges and sorrows and suffering that we have to endure along the way.  We wish it would all end today and we could just be happy and problem free.  We blame God for all sorts of things that have happened because of sin – our own and the cumulative sin and brokenness around us in our world.  But, even while we blame God and rail against Him and tell Him everything we hate about what’s going on, we still want God to do something to fix things, don’t we? 

The truth now is the same as the truth always has been.  In that snake story, God had set the people on a journey and He was with them and was clearly taking them to their destination, even when they didn’t feel like it.  When Jesus was hanging on the cross and dying, His followers couldn’t imagine how they had anything left to hope in but we know that God was very much on the scene doing what had to be done so they and we could experience life that is full and rich and will last forever.

Wherever you are in your journey today, God is with You.  God is speaking words of love and blessing for you to hear especially if you are going through a time where many things seem challenged and the way seems dark and unclear.  This Easter season, in the middle of this awful pandemic, lets lift up our eyes and see, even just with faith, the workings of a good God who is very much with us, very much in action on our behalf, and who has the ultimate victory awaiting us.

Loving God, we see so little and we forget so quickly all the good things that You do on our behalf.  History is full of many times You intervened in wonderful ways and brought people through difficult times.  We have not reason to expect anything different at this time and yet we do find ourselves complaining, feeling lost and wondering how to get through.

Today, Lord, we simply remind ourselves that You are with us and that You are at work bringing about good plans for everyone who puts their faith and trust in You.  Help us to remember to look up.  The people in the desert had to look up to the snake on the pole in order to get healing for the poisonous snake bite and we have to look up to Jesus who hung on the cross for us, believing that He did it for us and trusting His forgiveness and that even though we don’t see resolution to our difficulties, Easter Sunday resurrection is on the way.

Give us grace to wait in trust and to be thankful for all we do have – even during these days of waiting.  We have a history of how You work.  We have Your promise that You are with us and will work in all things to bring Your good plans to completion.  You are more loving and good than any of us could ever think of being and all that love for us and blessing for us is being poured out even today.  Help us to not miss the words of blessing and Your gifts of love that may come in a way that’s different than what we wanted, but are there for us today, if we will just receive them.

As we enter into these very special days approaching Easter, we want our hearts to be filled with gratitude and wonder, once again, at all Jesus was willing to give up and endure on our behalf.  God, help us to understand even more than we have before all You’ve done for us.  Amen