Have you ever just had one of those days? One where you just want to go back to bed and start over tomorrow? Or a day where whatever you’re doing, no matter how you do it, how you say it or how you try to look at it, nothing just seems to be right, go right or work right?
Some days it’s like that with work and then there are the days that it’s like that with family or friends. There are especially days that it’s like that on the farm. Murphy’s Law is in full effect and anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Anything that can break will break.
Now before you go worrying and wondering what’s going on, everything is just fine! I may just be a little grouchy today and my day may not be going as easily as I would like. I needed to take a mental health break as they say, and go for a walk. I forgot that it rained and wore the wrong shoes. It was extremely muddy and I slipped and screamed because the dog ran past and flung cow poop flavored mud on me! But in the end, all is well, everyone is healthy, and nothing needs to be bought or fixed today! All seems kind of pathetic once I read and say this all out loud compared to what some people are going through daily.
But pathetic mud on your shoes and legs may not be the case for you. You may find yourself in the midst of one of those days! It may even be one of those weeks, months, or years! We have all been there. We have all had those times and if we are not in the middle of it now, it is likely to circle back our way again. That’s just life, and as the scripture says, “it rains on the just and the unjust.” Sometimes life just happens.
But I was thinking about one particular issue on my poop/mud covered walk, and I just couldn’t figure out what to do or what the right decision was. I don’t know what to say, I don’t know how to answer, and it just seems like it’s just not peaceable any way I go about it. But then I stepped back and I thought about what this week is. This is the week leading up to Easter. I have been reading the scriptures daily that surround what Jesus was experiencing the days leading up to his death. He knew what was coming. He knew what was at the end of the week and yet, He continued to love and minister, heal the sick and be Jesus. In light of all that He experienced, all of the betrayal, pain, and even death, what little bit of aggravation, disappointment and heartache that I experience on this earth, will never compare to what He went through, and what His heavenly Father went through to allow it. Everything else fades at the cross.
Nothing else matters at the foot of the cross.
If I could look at every day, and every situation with the cross, as the crosshairs of my vision, nothing else matters.
So friend, will you join me this week and then in the days and weeks and months to come? When aggravation comes your way, simply set your sight on the cross. When disappointment and heartache come, and it will, look through the scope and see the crosshairs. See the cross and let everything else fade away.
Often times I believe that Christians have become numb to the message of the cross. We don’t see what He did in reality. We don’t see it in relation to us. But if you will take the time this week to see it and ponder and meditate on it and think about everything He went through. Get that mental picture of the anguish and pain, complete heart failure that He went through and then realize that He had your face in His mind the entire time. He was looking at you some 2000+ years in the future while He hung on that cross.
With every stripe that He took, you and your sins, your failures, your disappointments, He saw them all and He still chose to go to the cross. He still chose to go through agony, knowing that we would take His salvation and His free gift of love for granted. He did it knowing that we would abuse His grace and mercy, and understanding that 2000 years after His death, there would still be people who would refuse to believe that He was the Messiah.
He still went to the cross. So, the next time that you’re having one of those days, I challenge you to put it into perspective, the perspective of cross and let everything else fade away.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16
