Lent in the Valley
I was walking on a narrow gravel road that wound its way along the edge of a high ridge overlooking a sweeping valley. I am usually nervous about heights, but I was too focused on the journey to pay attention to the butterflies in my stomach.
This was long before I gazed into the majestic Rift Valley of East Africa or the breathtaking vistas of the mountains and valleys of North Africa and the Middle East. This was a dream, and in it, the colors of the earth were strikingly vivid and the air itself seemed alive. It was more real than any path I have ever hiked on earth.
I was with my companions and colleagues, and we were discussing strategy with intense seriousness. One brought out a massive map and spread it before us, and we peered into it, trying to decipher the best path to take. Our goal was to share the Gospel of Christ and display the glory of God. Brows knit in concentration, we paused our steps to study the map together.
Suddenly, I was taken up and found myself in the valley below. I was alone with Jesus, and we were under massive fire. Frantic, I crouched behind a rock as arrows, rocks, and bullets pierced the air around me. I cried out, and Jesus reached for me.
When he touched me, we were instantly at the mouth of the valley, and I was being borne up upon a cross. Naked, exposed, unable to move in any way to hide, I was fixed to the wooden beams for all to see. I wriggled to free myself and realized I was not fastened to the cross after all, but I was fixed to Jesus. And he, beneath me, was fixed to the cross. Up and down we bobbed with the uneven steps of those who carried us, intent on parading us through the length of the valley.
I felt no physical pain. Just shame and panic.
“This is the necessary way to my glory, child,” I heard Jesus say.
With his words, my hysteria calmed, and I felt the strange and solid comfort of his presence with me in the spectacle, the display, of our death. I was not alone. Crucified with Christ, I was held by him, hiding in plain sight.
I awoke with a start, knowing I had received a clear message from God. The song I had sung during college at summer camp suddenly took on new meaning. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.(Galatians 2:20, NIV)
That dream was almost twenty years ago. From that day, I began to think deeply about the strategies so important to us. Were they really the best way to effectively share the Gospel and glory of God?
God’s way seemed simpler, more excruciating.
Paul said, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3: 10-11, NIV).
Questions hammered my mind. Do I really want to know Christ? Do I want to know the power of the resurrection, to suffer? Is this the way to becoming like Jesus?
My prayers changed, and I began to ask God to show me His glory. I needed God’s help to ask for what I was afraid he might want from me. Help me give it all to you, Lord, even if that means I am on display for everyone to see, crucified with you in the valley.
Lent has always been a set apart time, a time I look forward to for spiritual renewal when I carefully select my focus and center myself upon the gift of the death and resurrection of Christ.
This year Lent has been a season of extreme suffering in my life. As trial after trial assailed me like rapid fire, I remembered the valley of my dream so long ago. Instead of choosing my suffering this Lent, like I have so many other years, Jesus has chosen me to walk through the valley with him. I have been borne up upon the cross, I am fixed upon Jesus, and we are on display for all to see our march to glory.
Suffering makes you feel so vulnerable, so exposed. But suffering with Jesus is a completely different matter. He holds us and hides us through the pain and reminds us of what is at the end of the long march.
New life waits for us on Resurrection Day. New beginnings and new hope. We will be there soon. Hide in Jesus, and believe his promise never to abandon or forsake you (Hebrews 13:5). In the meantime, the Gospel will be displayed through you as you trust him.
Have you suffered this Lent? Has it been a season of pain, driving you to distraction, unable to organize and prepare your heart using some tidy 40-day plan leading up to Resurrection Day?
Life’s suffering can blind us, rendering our plans and intentions irrelevant. There are times in life when all we can do is cling to Jesus. In our clinging, the Gospel becomes real to us and to others.
The plastic egg devotions I always do with my children are still in some box in the attic, forgotten this year. The devotional book I ordered in early February to read each day of Lent lies stiff, unopened. Instead, I have been hidden with Christ, in a place I would have never chosen, but yield to because I want to know Him completely. I trust His wounding of me. I trust His wounds.
Clinging to Jesus, as we are borne upon the cross with him, is enough. Rest into him in your suffering, and let him bear you to Resurrection.
We are marching through the valley, the necessary journey to his glory.
Increase in me, Jesus. Make me decrease. Make my walls so thin they become windows for everyone to see all of you. Amen.
TWEETABLES
Trust Jesus in through your pain this season of #Lent. (Click to Tweet)
I trust Jesus’ wounding of me, and I trust His wounds. #suffering #Lent (Click to Tweet)
No Comments