When Nightmares are Real

Hi Friends,

This week is Halloween, so I am thinking about those times we encounter when life seems like a nightmare-come-true.  Times of darkness and pain and doubt and fear and horror … when prayers don't make things all better and when what we were so afraid would happen, does.  I've been in that place.  You maybe have too.  You're maybe there now.

Mary was certainly there.  There, as her own son was condemned to die the most painful and horrific death imaginable.  There, as all her prayers were silenced, and God did not intervene to save her Son.  There, as everything she so feared became reality.  There, as her baby bled and died.  And she watched.

Here's a short excerpt from WRESTLING WITH WONDER about that time.  I hope it will be an encouragement to you in those times when the nightmares become real life ...

WHEN NIGHTMARES COME TRUE 

(Excerpt from Wrestling with Wonder)

Jesus had to die on a Roman cross for our sins so that we might be reconciled to God.

            There was no other way.

            Of course, Mary didn’t know that. But God did. And so do we.

            We know that the Messiah had to die a sinner’s death in our place that we might be free. From Jesus’s prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, we know that if there were an easier path, God would have chosen it.

            In Matthew 26, Jesus prayed: “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me.”

            And the soldiers, crowds, and Jewish leaders came and arrested him. They bound him. They beat him. They crucified him. And it was the will of God.

            There was no other way.

            The Messiah did not ascend to an earthly throne. The religious leaders did not recognize him. He was rejected, a crown not of gold but of thorns pressed upon his head, anointed not with kingly oil but with his own blood.

            There was no other way. 

            He was sinless, and condemned. He was lied about, and the truth didn’t prevail. He was accused, and said nothing. He was scourged, and not rescued. And then he died on a criminal’s cross.

            There was no other way.

            Because “it was the Lord’s will to crush him,” says Isaiah 53:10. There was no other way for Jesus to satisfy his Messiahship. No other way for the prophecies to be fulfilled. No other way for the promises to come true.

            No easier way for Mary to become who she was always meant to be—not just the mother of the Messiah, but the mother of the Savior.

            “God allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teach us lessons that we could learn in no other way,” says C. S. Lewis in The Problem of Pain.

            The God who called Mary to face her worst fears is the same God who calls us. He calls in those times when the worst happens, when what we feared might happen does happen. When it seems like life has gone from bad to worse and every time we pray something even more awful happens, that is when God is saying to us:

            There is no other way.

            No other way for him to accomplish his will in your life, to make you the person you were meant to be. If this cup could pass, it would.

            But it doesn’t.

            Because this is the way. And sometimes we must walk in it, with faith, with trust, with one foot in front of the other, even when all our fears come true.