Your Ways are miraculous, mysterious, powerful, transforming and so much higher than ours. You train us for Your Great Purposes in most unexpected ways; in the desert, in solitude, in lands of invisibility and insignificance, in weakness, on our knees, in rest, in quietness, in what appear to be unpleasant, undesirable places. But it is there we meet You Face to face and learn what it is to be a friend of God. Learn to hear Your Voice. Learn to be still as we realize only Your Movement matters. Learn who we are and who we are meant to be. Learn to see the real vision and to surrender our own. Thank You for training us in spite of our pleas.

If I am ever tempted to think that while on earth You endured suffering in a buffered way because You are God, I need only to visit the garden and Your cross walk. You asked three times for the cross not to happen. Three times!! Not once and then moved on in holy eagerness-but three times You pleaded for another way. When it was heartbreakingly denied, You entrusted Yourself to the Father’s will and were able to go forth victoriously, heroically and miraculously to accomplish the impossible. Another glimpse of Your complete humanity- a man had to help Your broken human body carry Your cross. You collapsed, bloodied and bruised, and required the arms of a mere man to lift the heavy cross.

If I am ever tempted to think that somehow You were shielded from the depth of human suffering, I need only to dwell in these accounts. You experienced our darkest moments and indeed are the sympathetic, understanding High Priest of Hebrews 4 and John 11. You sit and weep with us in our pain but then enable us to victoriously and miraculously experience the impossible.