Night had fallen

Can you relate to Isaiah’s feelings when he says, ‘I have toiled in vain, I have exhausted myself for nothing’?

All of us have this experience. Perhaps a relationship has not developed as we thought it would. Or we feel we have not been recognised in our careers or ministry. Or we gave up something, believing we were generous to God, only to find that underneath the generosity, we had unspoken expectations of how things would work out – and things didn’t work out that way.

“Life itself seems to have burst the hypothesis of God……It is not only the events that are the problem. It is their suggestive power to destabilise: to undermine hope, or to cause panic.” (Iain Matthew, The Impact of God) 

Jesus must have felt this as well as he approached Calvary. As a human being, he experienced life as we do, even if sometimes the Gospels (particularly John’s) depict him as knowing precisely what is going on. He shared the human condition totally with us, and this “night,” this “unknowing,” is part of the human condition.

If you are in a “night” experience at the moment, join it with Jesus’ as He walks to Calvary this week, or simply notice that He, too, felt this way.