Hope

It is 12:45 a.m. It is 12:45 a.m on a Monday morning and I can’t sleep. I can’t sleep because I took a nap this afternoon, something I haven’t done in a long time. It was one of those I’m-so-exhausted-from-doing-nothing naps, or an I’d-rather-sleep-than-have-to-think-about-my-life naps. I’m sure you know the kind. We’ve all been there. Maybe you just got dumped, failed a big test, can never seem to please your parents, can’t find a job, or just feel like nothing is going right. Spent day after day and night after night hoping to find The Answer, but always coming up short. Those days when hope seems too far to reach.

Reflecting on this, I think of my childhood. Remember all those cartoons we used to watch? The characters always got themselves into some kind of crazy predicament that somehow solved itself in the end. Every time. A lot of these predicaments involved falling off cliffs, or skyscrapers, or out of airplanes. The character would plummet toward earth, falling faster and faster, sure to splat into the ground at any second, when voila! Underneath them was a net or a trampoline that appeared out of nowhere, and they bounced back up and into safety. Lucky right? We never worried, because we knew this was going to happen. It’s supposed to happen, that’s just how it is.

Sometimes we feel like those characters we used to watch in those Saturday cartoons. I’m at a point like that now. Falling, faster and faster, no end in sight, no other thought but how much it’s going to hurt to hit the ground. But I, we, have forgotten something important. There is going to be something, someone, to catch us at the end. A net. A trampoline. To cushion our fall and bounce us back up again. That someone is Jesus.

Recently I attended an All Sons and Daughters concert, and Pastor Jamie from their church in Tennessee said something I won’t soon forget:

No matter how deep we sink, God is still lower.

No matter how deep we sink, God is still lower. What a thought. God is everywhere, God is everything. He came specifically for the sinners, for the broken, to raise us up to new life. He literally descended into hell before His resurrection; such was His love for every being of this world. No matter our confusion, no matter our suffering, doubt, or sadness, no matter how low we feel ourselves sinking, Christ is there. He has been there before, He is there now. He is our net waiting to catch us at the bottom, our trampoline ready to bounce us back up. Even thought we may hit with all the force and weight of our problems, even though we might continue to sink just a little bit more, He is still there. Cushioning us, wrapping us, refusing to break.

I find so much comfort in this thought. It isn’t just that God understands our suffering. It isn’t just that He sympathizes because He loves us. He. is. there. Right now. For you and me. Every time, without fail, again and again and again. You who feel like there’s no end to this fall, you who have no answers, you who don’t know how it’s going to turn out? Spoiler alert: it’s Jesus. I guess there was something to learn from those Saturday morning cartoons after all.

I waited patiently for the Lord; He inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure.

- Psalm 40:1-2