This Easter I spent some time reflecting on the Bible’s description of all that took place in Jerusalem; from the time of Palm Sunday when Jesus rode into the city on a donkey, until the time of the crucifixion on Good Friday, the end of the same week.  I was mostly interested in the people of the crowd.  I know what was happening to Jesus that week, but I wanted to know what was happening to them, or more specifically, in them.  Because somewhere deep inside, I know I am like them. 

I can only imagine that on that Palm Sunday, as Jesus rode into town on the back of a borrowed donkey, that every good Jew in the crowd was thinking about the verse from Zechariah 9:9 prophesying that their Jewish King, their messiah, would ride into town this exact way.  They had heard of the miracles he was performing.  I can completely imagine how the energy, excitement, and anticipation was thick in the air.  They shouted, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the king of Israel!”  Yes! They had been waiting for their Messiah for so very long, and he finally was here.  He was going to save them, deliver them from their suffering, rescue them from the Roman Empire and establish His Kingdom.  They were no longer going to be ruled and oppressed by others.  They were about to enter into their destiny, and it was filled with victory, celebration and freedom!  If only their ancestors could see them now.  How utterly blessed they were to be the generation that would see this all happen.  And then it didn’t.

By the time Friday rolled around, those very same people had turned into the crowd screaming, “Free Barabbas!”, who was a despicable criminal and convicted murderer, and “Crucify Jesus!”, the King they had just laid their cloaks and palms down for just days before.  What made them turn?  How could they go from praise and joy to such anger and hatred in just days?  These questions made me turn within, because we can often see ourselves in the people of the Bible, and learn about ourselves from their experiences.  I remembered a time in my life when I felt my heart turning on God, the God I had praised my whole life. 

My husband and I had bought a mortgage business in our mid to late 20’s and six months later the housing market crashed.  To make a loooong story short, we ended up having to file personal and business bankruptcy, and so before we were even 30 years old we had dug ourselves into a financial hole so deep I couldn’t see the way out.  On top of all this, my health was failing with lung issues that just wouldn’t let up; our usually clean house suddenly had four different pest infestations of bats from the attic coming into the house, fleas all over the downstairs floors, saw tooth grain beetles in my pantry affecting all our boxed food, and a spider nest that hatched in my clothes closet with so many baby spiders hanging from webs everywhere that I literally shut the door and didn’t go in for a year!;  my marriage was failing as my husband worked through some character issues; I had just had my fourth second-trimester miscarriage in a row; and our home church was splitting.  It seemed like we were under attack and there was no area of our life off limits.   I felt like the very foundation I stood on was giving way under my feet.  I thought I had built my house on a rock, but right then, it all felt like sand.

And then I felt it.  The deep despair you experience when you expect your savior to show up and rescue you and he doesn’t.   I feet let down, left alone, and fully abandoned.  I couldn’t see God, I couldn’t feel God, and I couldn’t hear God, and so I began to doubt God.  I doubted his goodness, I questioned his love for me, and I challenged my trust in him.  I always knew he existed, he had proven that to me beyond a shadow of a doubt, but I no longer knew what was true about him.  If I prayed, I knew he could do it, but I didn’t know if he would do it, and that made me feel hopeless, so I stopped praying.  I relinquished my spiritual armor and stood defenseless.  For a while it seemed like God was ok with life destroying me, and that was the worst part, feeling like God just didn’t care and I had been duped. My heart was turning on him and I was beginning to shout Barabbas! which really just means we are willing to open ourselves up to whatever option there is, as long as it’s not him.  But then Sunday always comes.

As that period of trial played out in my life, I began to see God differently.  Just like he appeared to his followers after his resurrection to clarify to them who he was and what had just happened, he began to open my eyes.  It was as if my old conception of God was dying away and a clearer, truer understanding was taking form.  I realized he wasn’t my cosmic butler, my 911 rescuer, my get out of jail free card, or my personal assistant.  And most importantly, he had never been the one to tell me he was any of that.  The truth of him is not dependent on my perception of him.  He does things on his terms because he is Lord.  And he does rescue, and he is faithful, he does heal, restore, provide, and everything else the Bible says he is.  But it’s when he is ready, because only he knows what we need, the purpose of why it’s happening, and when we are ready for each step of our journey.  My faith grew roots, and at times it was painful, but there are worse things in life than growing pains.  Things like living without hope, without purpose, and without my savior.

I have to say, that during that season of storms in our life, my worst fears were never realized.  We lost some things, but we never went without a meal, a bed to sleep on, a roof over our heads, or clothes on our back.  Everything we lost was restored, including hope.  We moved on from our failed business, and through continued hard work, my husband became successful working for another mortgage company.  The pests all went away and even left us with a few funny stories (ask me to tell my bat in the hair story if you ever see me). A good pulmonologist helped me treat the worst symptoms of my lung issues, finally bringing relief to my persistent cough.  I suffered two more miscarriages before having two beautiful daughters, baffling the doctors and the specialists who had tried to help me.  My husband surrendered his struggles to the Lord and allowed God to change his heart and mind which led to a healing and restoration in our marriage that could only be called a miracle.  And the day (hear me, the same day!) we planned to call the bank to foreclose on our house, our town approached us about buying a piece of our property to expand the elderly housing that abutted our land, being just the amount we needed to get out of debt and start afresh. If that’s not restoration, faithfulness, provision, healing, goodness, blessing and love, then I don’t know what is.  

If your heart has ever cried “Barabbas!” over “Jesus!” because of hurt, disappointment, despair, exhaustion, frustration, and crushed hopes, just remember what Jesus was doing from Good Friday to Easter Sunday.  He was saving our eternal souls, not just our temporary circumstances.  He was restoring us to himself for his eternal Kingdom; he was rescuing us from sin and death, out of the clutches of Satan; he was providing us a path that lead straight to him, because we were all lost; and he was healing our hearts, because sin had infected us all.  If he can handle all that, certainly he has a plan to help you in your circumstances!  Try not to limit God based on how he is performing in your current circumstance, because he is so much bigger than that, and he will show up.  Your weak moments don’t mean that God is weak, it just means that your roots of faith need deepening so you will be like a tree planted by the water, and you too, by the grace of God, shall not be moved. 

Isaiah 26:3   You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.

Romans 8:28  And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.