I want to know that you really care when you say you do. I want to sit with you without the thought that there's a thousand and one things I could be doing instead.
When I sit with you, I try and try to make myself present. I see other people fall in love with you, I can tell from their eyes, the way it lights up when the Shekinah comes. I've started to give up, my heart is cold, I can't feel. I don't feel anything. I wonder where you were when I was going through the storms,
It was on the 2nd of March - a Sunday - that I realized I could be angry with both a preacher and his sermon. My pastor had said something in the lines of, “It doesn’t matter what you go through in this life, we know that we have eternal life….if you are sick in your body, in eternity you’d have a new body…” He was talking about Joy, about how the sufferings of this earth would be ceased in heaven and so we should rejoice about it.
As I sat on my seat, book and pen in hand, glasses well positioned on the bridge of my nose, my mind struggled to keep up with the sermon after those statements were made. All that ran through my mind was: WHY NOT NOW? WHY MUST I WAIT UNTIL ETERNITY TO BE HAPPY? WHY COULDN’T THE BURDENS THAT WEIGHED ME DOWN BE LIFTED NOW?
After the service, my fingers kept itching to send a text message to my pastor: Why not now? Why can’t we be happy now? Must we suffer on earth? The tragedy, the loneliness, the madness. Must everything have to feel like a struggle?
I didn’t end up sending the message but that question was etched subconsciously in my mind.
The bible describes God as El-roi. The God who sees. God saw how much I needed that sermon, how much it offended me, and God sent His word towards me. It exposed the growing sadness and bitterness in my heart, and God couldn’t leave me that way.
On March 9th, I sat down again at my favourite spot in church listening to another sermon. This time around my pastor talked about how we’ve received the greatest gift in life -salvation in Christ Jesus- and because of that, we have hope and we rejoice in that hope.
Let me backtrack a little bit, on Saturday night, I led my service unit members in prayer and one of our prayer points was: Lord fill us with joy.
So when my heart started to fill with joy after hearing the sermon, I truly felt at peace. It didn’t matter that I had not the financial capacity I desired. It didn’t matter that my applications were rejected. It didn’t matter that my rent was expiring and I had nowhere else to go. I have Jesus and I know everything would turn out fine.
Before, I was like the disciples of Jesus, facing a raging storm and freaking out that they were going to perish in it, forgetting that Jesus was also in the boat with them - sleeping. After that sermon, I realized that I shouldn’t be depressed because I had Jesus, and even if the boat was sinking, Jesus walks on water.
So yes, my Joy is not happiness. It is not circumstantial. My Joy is that Jesus is in my boat, and even if He doesn’t command the raging storms to cease, He can walk on water when the boat begins to sink.
Till next time,
Love and Light.
You can buy me a coffee: