Here is the revelation that is shaping my life today – you can stare into an empty tomb but that doesn’t mean a risen saviour unless you remember and believe. Faith, remembering, gives new eyes to see differently in the storms of life.
Luke 24:6,11,25,44 TPT
[6] Have you forgotten what he said to you while he was still in Galilee:
11] When the disciples heard the testimony of the women, it made no sense, and they were unable to believe what they heard.
25] Jesus said to them, “Why are you so thick-headed? Why do you find it so hard to believe every word the prophets have spoken? [44] Then he said to them, “Don’t you remember the words that I spoke to you when I was still with you?
Observation
Heartbreaking circumstances can create amnesia. It seems like when the storms come we walk forgetting, or not believing, what Jesus has said. What he said about himself, about us, about the way to life. The roar of circumstances deafens my memory, the pain of circumstances makes me drop my beliefs. I wonder then why I wander with aimless confusion just wanting an ending not a new me shaped in the fire. When everything looks dead you can submit to death’s knock and miss your resurrection, even though it’s promised.
Remembering, and believing, in the face of circumstances is the release firstly of sight for the risen Jesus, then hope in him, then new days dawn through him. What is obvious can so easily be missed if you close your eyes, your heart, to its presence. We must decide, do we serve the pain and lose our minds, or do we embrace its reality and remember with hope and belief that enables my pain to be carried and reshaped? Empty tombs don’t mean risen saviours unless you remember and believe.
You can’t avoid the storms. You can’t avoid loss, loss of dreams, loss of loved ones, loss of security. All that we desperately try and hang on to is fragile, that’s the way life is. So spend your days living alive to Jesus, intimately alive to his presence, hearing and embracing his words in your heart, so when the days where your fragile loves break you have prepared yourself for the journey. The amazing thing is that every fragile breaking is the dawn of resurrection life. Life is a series of death and resurrections and we find our true selves in the way we embrace resurrection life in the face of death.
Application
Remember. Believe. I will not allow the alternative “it made no sense, and they were unable to believe what they heard,” to be the shaping story over my life. I will shape my circumstances in Jesus, I will not bow down to circumstances’ stories shaping me. I will allow resurrection to be my story, it will not end with death when I stare into an empty tomb.
Response
Thank you that you have risen and that makes resurrection in you my story. Thank you that you give me memory and faith that I might walk with you in the storms. Thank you that you do not give shallow promises of no storms, but rather the promise of presence and resurrection in storms. I love life lived with you, I can’t see me writing any story of a tomorrow I want to live, outside of you.
Meditation
Meditate – Have you forgotten?
Consider:
Without remembering the words of Jesus, without believing in him, what story are you writing in your storms?
Has the pain of the storm given you amnesia of mind and faith?
JOURNEY DEEPER