Our God is Greater

I stood in the Easter service this morning amazed. Amazed at God. Amazed at His faithfulness. Amazed at the way He knows me so intimately. Amazed at how He speaks Truths to my heart when I’m not even conscious of the lies needing to be refuted. Amazed at the way He meets me where I’m at and affirms and confirms. Amazed at the depth to which He refreshes and restores and fills. And I love that He did that today before I was even dry or worn out or empty.

During my last two months in the US, I have seen so much brokenness—all shapes and sizes and depths….

My cousins are making the tough choice to home-school because all of the public school options in their town are downright scary places.

In that small, western town and in the church, there is also a strangely high concentration of broken families and broken relationships—so many grandparents caring for their grandchildren, struggling marriages, hurting people. The Kingdom seems to be so small.

Then there’s the drug house on my mom’s bus route. The couple has nine children (and counting…), all with some sort of special needs and the father is abusive.

I see years and years of family conflict that seems to have become the unchangeable norm;

people living out the repercussions of their bad choices, some completely unaware;

youth group friends that are still running from God;

negative ethnic stereotypes that sometimes seem so true;

friends dealing with cancer and infertility and the hard road to healing;

and the trajectory of health care and morality and marriage and so-called “freedom” is frightening.

Is this the same country I left so many years ago?

And so, travel weary and with all of this weighing on my heart, I entered Holy Week. Maundy Thursday and Good Friday were especially hard as the questions and doubts and sadness lingered below the surface. I wasn’t quite sure what was going on in my heart, I just felt unusually tired and overwhelmed with unarticulated emotion. As I opened my Bible on Holy Saturday, I just stared at the pages. They had laid Jesus in the tomb, then…. nothing…. end of paragraph…. end of chapter…. silence….

I think God allowed me to sit in that “ending” emotionally. He let me sit in the midst of all the yuckiness and unresolved brokenness, feeling the tangible waiting of today and the “not yet” of Jesus’ reign. What had those last words, “It is finished” meant? Is that it? Is He really enough? Is that all that the promised “Kingdom coming” is? What, then, are we to do with all the wounds and pain, unfulfilled dreams and fading hope? I could only groan and listen to John Waller’s “While I’m Waiting,” which helped me surrender afresh to the God I know to be Good and Loving even though I cannot see it in the right-now.

However, the surrender of my heart has never been a one-time thing and this weekend was no exception. In the shower this morning, I began wondering if all that have seen and processed and heard from God in the past few months was real or not. The promises and the hope almost seemed irrelevant and unrealistic in light of the brokenness around me. Was my heart and my trust running completely off base?

Then, I saw this in the window this morning…. 

The sun rising…. over the hilltop…. through the brown, unleafed branches…. shining right through the cross. Isn’t that exactly how it is?!

Chris Tomlin articulates this Truth beautifully in the song we sang at church this morning.

Water You turned into wine
Opened the eyes of the blind
There's no one like You, none like You
Into the darkness You shine
Out of the ashes we rise
There's no one like You, none like You

Our God is greater, our God is stronger
God You are higher than any other
Our God is Healer, awesome and power
Our God, Our God...
[ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsty.com/chris-tomlin-our-god-is-greater-lyrics.html ]
God spoke the Truth of His amazing, unchanging character over my heart’s questions today, this Resurrection Day. He is greater than the brokenness, stronger than the relational struggles. He is Healer for the wounds, awesome and powerful over the doubts and rebellion and unbelief. The burial of Jesus was NOT the end of the story! The stone has been rolled away. He is Risen! He is Alive and relevant and Real! He forgives and it is complete. He brings life and it is full.

….I am so thankful….

And because I love the imagery....another beautiful picture of the way the Resurrection affects our daily life from the Moravian church graveyard in Old Salem, NC.