Eastertide Devotions, Day Four: When Life Feels Impossible … Can God Still Work?

Undoubtedly during these days since Resurrection Sunday you’ve experienced something difficult or challenging or maybe even impossible. Our lives are fraught with trouble as Jesus promised in John 16:33, “in this world you will have trouble …”

How do you naturally respond to difficulties? Do you feel panic, stress, overly-responsible, helpless, lost, abandoned, desperate to fix it?

Holy Week in 33 A.D. was a seven-day odyssey of wild and tumultuous emotional swings as events went from triumph on Palm Sunday to utter defeat on Passover. Day one and the mountaintop experience of Jesus riding into the city on a donkey, just like kings of old ... followed by days which devolved from hopeful to hopeless, expectant to empty, confident to crushed. The despair and failure felt by all who followed and loved Jesus was indescribable as unforeseen circumstances went from bad to impossible to terrifying.

Yet Jesus walked each step of the week with a spirit of trust and rest in His Father’s plan. His attitude left all who watched, including Pilate, dumbfounded and stupefied. How could He have walked to His predetermined death with such peace in spite of His agony in the garden and His deep grief over His betrayals? Jesus never reacted, defended Himself, or tried to fix the obviously false charges against Him.