Overwhelmed with Sorrow

Recently my mind has been consumed with the deep pain and suffering many dear friends have been experience in these days. As I grieve with them, everything in me want to just fix the situations. As much as I want to have the "right things to say," my greatest desire would be to just make it go away completely. I'm sure they wouldn't complain :).

In all of my love and encouragement to the brokenhearted, my desire it to point them to Jesus. Why? Is that just the good Christian thing to do? How in the world does saying "trust Jesus" offer any hope when the bottom has fallen out of life?

One of the most comforting things to know is that Jesus is intimately acquainted with our pain. Not simply because he is God, but because he has been there. The night before he was going to be crucified he prayed to the Father, "My soul is very sorrowful, even to death" (Matt 26:38). Maybe in your pain you have thought this...I just want to die so this will all be over. Jesus was so overwhelmed with sorrow (Isaiah 53:3) that he began to sweat blood. One of our tendencies is to dumb down the agony of the cross and simply say, "He's Jesus, it wasn't that bad for him." This passage clearly tells us that the last thing Jesus wanted to do was die. He didn't want to suffer the agony of the cross. He didn't want to suffer the agony of His Father's wrath poured out for sin. He was "OVERWHELMED WITH SORROW." This moment of his life was the deepest darkest pit he had ever experienced and he wanted to do whatever it took to get out, at least in that moment. He said, "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me" (Matt 26:39).

But his conclusion is one that offers us so much hope and purpose in our suffering. "nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will" (v.39). In the deepest, darkest pit of his life, Jesus, the Son of God, turned to the greatest and most sure hope he had...the same hope that we have today. That hope was the loving, sovereign will of His Father. He didn't understand it in that moment. He even wanted to run from it, but he found more joy in walking in the will God had for him than he would have ever found if he could have removed his pain.

We never will that pain would happen in our lives. In fact, we do everything we can to run from the pain. But we learn from Jesus that it's in the deepest pit of the pain where we find a Father whose will is certain and his plan is perfect. Imagine if Jesus would have escaped the pain and ran from the cross...but he didn't. He ran to it.

My prayer is that you would run to your pain. Don't suppress it! Don't hid from it. Run to it! For it is in the deep pits of your life that you find a loving Father who want to bring miraculous salvation to your soul. Don't waist your suffering! Allow it to be the tool God has designed it for...to get you to Him. For it is there you will find rest and hope and yes even JOY that you would have never experienced otherwise. (Ps. 16:8-11)

Ps. 119:50
This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life.

Lord help my friends find abundant life (John 10:10) in you knowing and believing the truth of Isaiah 26:3-4

3 You keep him in perfect peace
whose mind is stayed on you,
because he trusts in you.
4 Trust in the Lord forever,
for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.