Two paths
This week has been hard. People are hurting. Some that we know, but many more that we can only see from a distance.
It hasn't been an easy week, month, year, or decade.
In some ways it's always been like this.
As a fan of history I can look back and see proof after proof of people in pain, and suffering abounding. But right now, at this moment, the experience I live is real; it's not in the past, it's today. And to my eyes it's not good.
As a nation, as a whole humanity; we feel more divided than ever before.
Candidly, I'm mad.
I'm frustrated. I feel at a loss, unable to do anything to fix the fear and pain I see around me.
The things I believed about the world, about people, about religion, about institutionsâall feel so uncertain.
At times like this I feel two paths pulling at me, two divergent feelings tugging at my soul.
On the one hand I see the path of despair.
What can I do? I'm just one person.
How can I make the world a little better?
It's like trying to stop the tide with sand castles.
My empathy, my ability to hold in the weight of everything I seeâit's not enough. I try to see and feel what others are going through, to hold it in my heart (and that's a good thing, we shouldn't become apathetic and stop trying), but there's many days where it's too much. And an intent focus only on all the wrong is a heavy burden.
Then there's another path, another way. It's not easy, it's not without its challenges. And sometimes it means doing the really hard thing, and speaking truths that are not easy. In some ways it's the easiest path of all, but in other ways it requires setting aside all notions of what I think should be done.
I'm speaking of course, of the gospel. But sometimes that's easy to overlook, easy to assume that it's something already checked off in my mind.
But it's something different, something special. The gospel is a path of hope.
It's a path of love.
Despair has an end point, an ultimate conclusion, an endgame that consumes until it pulls us in and spits us out empty.
Love though? It has no end. It's boundless. It continues for eternity and beyond.
Not my love, of course. Mine has limits. There's plenty of days I get tapped out and have nothing left in me.
But love as a concept, shared by an eternal being? That's compelling.
When I look around at the world and feel despair, and don't see how this can all get fixedâI do see one possibility.
And it's not in humanity.
It's something higher. It's a savior who knows our pain, someone who walked this path before us.
So what does that mean practically?
For me it's reaching out to the Jesus I love and know. Spending time understanding what he did on this earth, what he said to his followers, and giving room for the Holy Spirit to touch my heart.
Focusing my attention toward Jesus provides an answer to so much I can't understand. He was persecuted, abused, misrepresented, betrayed, and murdered. All the compounding pain of this worldâthe unending agony of humans in painâhe felt and feels it all.
He understands our sorrows, our hurts, and our confusion intimately.
And he offers a place of rest.
We can take our agony, frustration, anger and hand them to Jesusâhe's excited to take it all on and help us, to be there for us.
And love? When it's coming from our redeemer it's unending, it surrounds us and compels us to spread that love to others.
Earlier I said that humanity doesn't offer hope with the despair we all feel.
But that's not entirely accurate.
Like Moses coming down from the mountain, his face beaming with the reflected light of talking to God, we can also share back the light to encourage and lift up our brothers and sisters.
We can be a symbol of hope to those around us.
And so my prayer for each of us today is that we'll feel grace and hope, sense his love in and through us.
Does that mean things just got easier? No. But it does mean we have a God willing to hear our pain, and walk through it together. And that also means we can do just a little bit of the same with those around us.
âCome to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.â Matthew 11:28 (NRSV)