Are you suffering from mental exhaustion? Sooner or later, it happens to us all. We’re all dealing with a major world health pandemic that is uncomfortable, inconvenient, challenging, terrifying, and so much more. We are just spent, dry, weary, and totally mentally exhausted in every way. None of us are immune. Life is extremely hard these days. We all have a lot of daily battles that can drain us completely dry. Parenting, marriage, jobs, relationships, fears, worries about the future, experiencing loss, discouragement, illness, money problems, it all can leave us feeling beaten down and worn out. When we are pushed to the point of exhaustion and deep human sorrow, when our strength is depleted physically, spiritually, mentally and emotionally, we need to STOP and take a moment to catch our breath, to recharge and refuel. That is what Palm Sunday allows us to do. Palm Sunday is a celebration of joy and pain, exuberance and conflict. Where is our Savior calling us to venture? We are to walk from Palm Sunday to Easterthrough the Thursday Arrest, the Friday Execution, and the long Saturday of waiting in the void. Imagine all of us, in the wake of Jesus, changing our minds, renewing our minds, altering our opinions concerning self, neighbor, and world. As our minds change, we come to a new freedom. It is Easter freedom, unburdened and fearless, freed for the interest of our neighbor. We are called to replicate his life in our own life. We are to find ourselves with Easter Freedom. Resilience is not about how you endure. It’s about how you recharge.
Love has you. Love is you. But for God to reach us, we have to allow suffering to wound us. Now is no time for an academic solidarity with the world. Real solidarity needs to be felt and suffered. That’s the real meaning of the word “suffer” – to allow someone else’s pain to influence us in a real way. We need to move beyond our own personal feelings and take in the whole. This, I must say, is one of the gifts of technology: we can turn it on and see how people in countries other than our own are hurting. What is going to happen to those living in isolated places or for those who don’t have health care? Imagine the fragility of the most marginalized, of people in prisons, the homeless, or even the people performing necessary services, such as ambulance drivers, nurses, and doctors, risking their lives to keep society together. Our feelings of urgency and devastation are not exaggeration: they are responding to real human situations. We have to allow these feelings, and invite God’s presence to hold and sustain us in a time of collective prayer.
I hope this experience will force our attention outwards to the suffering of the most vulnerable. Love always means going beyond yourself to otherness. We must be stretched to an encounter with otherness, and only then do we know it’s love. Love alone overcomes fear and is the true foundation that lasts. I believe the meaning of the Resurrection of Jesusis summed up in the climactic line from the Song of Songs, “love is stronger than death” (8:6). If the blank white banner that the Risen Christ usually holds in Christian art should say anything, it should say: “Love will win!” Love is all that remains. Love and life are finally the same thing, and we know that for ourselves once we have walked through death. This day and every day, I bow down on my knees and pray for you, I pray to our Heavenly Father that He will STRENGTHEN you to rise up empowered with the Spirit of RESILIENCE, your God-given ability to shine and GLORIFY GOD in the midst of ADVERSITY.
Heavenly Father, we ask for your healing over every part of our lives – physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. We ask that you would make us strong and resilient for the days ahead. We know that you have great purpose for those who believe in your name. Help us not to allow the distractions and struggles of our days, weary us down to the point of exhaustion. We know that your desire is for us to live this life abundantly and free.
Thank you that you are greater than anything we face here in this life, and our desire is to reflect your love and light to a world that so desperately needs your hope. Remind us that all the momentary troubles and every single battle belongs to you. We believe that whatever we’re up against can be taken down in one fail swoop by your mighty hand. Thank you for the victories in our lives, that have no explanation except, “God did this.” We give you the glory and honor for all that you’re doing every day, even in the times we can’t see it all, or fully understand your ways. Help us to keep our eyes on you and off our circumstances. Help us to see when another soul around us needs to be encouraged too. May we be faithful to carry one another’s burdens, remembering that we’re all in this life journey together, and there’s great power in unity. We love you Lord and we need you today. We’re reminded of our weakness, but we know that in you, we are strong. We lift up our hearts and hands to worship you. Thank you for your great love and care. Thank you that you surround us like a shield, we choose to find rest in you today. In Jesus’ Name we pray. Amen.