Day 2987 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Hebrews 4:15 NIV

He knows.

Sadly, it seems that’s one fact that is easily and rather quickly overlooked or forgotten when in the midst of one of the many trying times of life. We all know just how often those harder days come around when it seems that everything around us it doing everything it can to break us down, beat us up and get us to give in and accept the defeat we know always seems to be looming over us just waiting to sneak in and undo all that’s been done.

This life is one of immense temptation, trial, turmoil, tragedy. And in the mix of all those incredibly difficult situations we’re all just trying. Trying to hold on. Trying to hold it together. Trying to stay focused and stay above the surface and just stay faithful. But so often it seems like we’re right on that edge of falling apart. And it’s in those incredibly frequent moments when we need to remember just who our Savior really is.

Just scary how hard that reminder is to find when so many other things and powerful emotions and difficult circumstances are demanding our attention.

If you know me, and few do, I'm a pretty simple person. Don't have a lot, don't want a lot. Materialistic pursuits have never really managed to remain of much importance to me. Guess I just don't see the point in obtaining a bunch of stuff that someone else will have to sort through and sell off when I'm no longer here to find it important or valuable or worth holding onto.

But hanging on my wall I have a sheet of handwritten lyrics from Jeremy Camp for his song entitled He Knows. And I've looked to those words and thought of that song many times in many different situations in which I've found myself. There are a great many times in life in which we find ourselves feeling quite alone, unseen, unheard, unnoticed. We've all experienced that feeling of knowing that no one else could possibly understand how we feel at the moment.

Thankfully, that couldn't be further from the truth.

Now granted, many of life's storms do require us to walk through them rather independently. We may have friends or family or some other source of external help that stands with us and supports us and tries to encourage us through whatever it is that we're facing or feeling. But in the end, our battles are just that, our battles. They're our challenges. They're our mountains. They're our giants. And as such, they're our reality.

And no matter how much anyone may be able to offer, the fact is that nobody can physically or mentally or spiritually step into our shoes and walk the miles we have to tread. It's just not feasible. Nobody can fully understand every thought we've thought, every fear we've felt, every hope we've seen dashed to pieces. There may be a few who've had similar experiences and who do genuinely care. But still, they're not us seeing our life through our eyes carrying our weight facing our obstacles.

But He knows.

Christ knows. He has literally faced the very worst of life, of humanity, of humanity's inhumanity. He's felt the sting of watching His friends and companions turn away. He's felt the sorrow of seeing society slide further from the saving grace He so kindly offers. He's witnessed a world wield a kind of wickedness that shouldn't exist. He's received the lashes unleashed because of the death within those He's only trying to offer new life.

He's walked it. He's carried it. He's tasted the very bitterest of life's bitterness. Pierced, punished, persecuted. Refused, rejected, rebuked. Ignored, impaled, intimidated. Harassed, hated, hurt and harmed. Abandoned, afflicted, alienated. Tempted, tried, torn.

And yet, somehow we still so often to agree to feel completely alone in whatever we're going through. Somehow we manage to miss the message of our Messiah. Somehow we overlook it, forget it, just can't see it. Maybe it's because the misery of the moment is such that our entire focus is poured into the situation at hand. Maybe it's because we're just used to being on the receiving end of the world's hatred. Or maybe it's just because we can't wrap our minds around how anyone else could possibly get it.

But friends, that's the miracle of Savior who dwells within. He isn't some distant God watching over from afar. He's not a friend who is entirely disconnected and only able to understand what we manage to find the words to say when we don't know what to say. He's there. He's the One who goes before to lead and behind to protect. He walks beside us every step of this journey in a direction that gives us plenty of reasons to quit.

He felt that all too.

He stepped into this earth knowing how He’d leave. And as that finality approached, as His hour drew near, as the time came to do what He came to do, He showed just how much He gets it. As prayed in the garden of Gethsemane before heading to finish the job at hand, He himself cried out to God, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me." So He knows what it's like to want something over. He knows the sorrow and sadness and shame of being hated unfairly, treated unfairly, tortured unfairly. He knows what it's like to walk a path that is filled with nothing but misery and torment.

There is none who can relate to our feelings and emotions and worries and pains like Jesus can. There is none who knows the tempting offers given by the enemy who tries continually to get us to give up. There is none who knows the anger of seeing truth and faith and decency despised by the world. There is none who knows the heaviness of life more than the One who carried our death.

Friends, so many times we've felt all alone. It's natural. It's a human reaction to the uniqueness of our own personal story. We know that nobody else is living our life. We know that there's not another person who can actually see the entirety of our personal perspective. We know that even asking someone else to take a bit of time to at least pretend to be interested in something that's really weighing heavily on our hearts is often just not worth the risk of disappointment.

But we don't even have to ask Him to be there. He just is. We don't have to pour out this perfectly rehearsed recount of whatever we're going through or however it's left us feeling. We don't have to do anything other than just let Him be who He is. He wants to walk with us through the trials and turmoil which lay ahead. He wants to guide us through the miserable minefield of life. He wants to help, to heal, to teach, to lead.

All so that we can simply learn that He's enough. That we're not really alone in whatever we're facing. That we can truly lean on Him without even having to explain why we need to. Just because that's the kind of intense relationship that He gave His life to give to us.

As we've been talking, the road ahead is beginning to look quite daunting. The world around us isn't even trying to pretend to be civil anymore. We've become an incredibly uncivilized civilization. And as such, we're seeing and hearing and feeling the retribution of the death so many are happily dying. We're witnessing the hatred rise and the hateful become more extreme in their clear distaste of our faith and the truth upon which it stands.

And so here we find ourselves standing on the precipice of the final gambit of a world embracing all sorts of really wicked things. And as it grows colder and this faith of ours is hated more and more viciously, we need to know that what we're going to face isn't going to be easy. But even more than that, we need to know that we're not going into it alone.

Christ Himself has seen all that's still to come. And the promise of our faith is that He's already overcome it. And in that promise we ought to find all the courage we need to both face the trials ahead with a tenacity that refuses to break, but also a courage to lean on Him and His victory when we feel ourselves nearing that breaking point. It will come, but when it does, we've a Savior who has proven unbreakable.

And as Scripture so powerfully reminds, if He is for us, who can be against us?

We're going to have hard days. We'll go through times of anger, of doubt, of fear, of confusion. We will be tempted to give it up, to walk away, to renounce our faith in exchange for a moment of peace. We'll experience a great many powerful emotions in this life still to come. But with them all we have the opportunity to lean upon the One who asks us to lean on Him. And while it may not take it all away or make it less concerning or troublesome, knowing that nothing can take away His promise nor His presence is about all the peace we could ever hope to find in this life.

Friends, as I shared yesterday, this past stretch has been quite different. Something about the air just feels different. The oddities and unrest only seem to be increasing in size and frequency. And I've found myself feeling different than I ever remember feeling. Don't know why and so I don't really know what it means. But, I just think that today's a great day to find new hope in the promise of Savior who's been where we're going and promises to walk us through it to the fulfillment of the promise we might feel is still far off.

Whatever comes, however it feels, however you feel in this moment of whatever you're facing, just know that He knows. As much as it might feel like it at times, alone is never really possible with Christ. He's just not that kind of God. His love will not run out, nor will His provision or His promise to lead us and help us and heal us whenever and wherever we find ourselves.

Nothing can separate us from the King we've chosen to serve. Because He won't let it. And while many things in this life seem to have the power to destroy and distract and divide, nothing has that authority. The only One with that authority has proven to embody a kind of love that is willing to do whatever it takes to help those who can't help themselves.

Lean on that. Lean into that. Lean into Him. He's not unable to understand us or our issues. We just need to understand that He already does. He knows the way through whatever comes because He's walked it Himself. The anger, the sadness, the dejection, the rejection, the temptation, the trial, the testing, the pain. He gets it because He’s lived it.

We don't have to face any of this life by ourselves. And while we’ve assumed that to be the case so many times in the past, we just don’t need to fall into that lie anymore. We don’t need to accept this story that tells us we’re all by ourselves and only have our strength or wisdom or ability to lean on. We’ve so much more at our back that simply what we’re capable of doing or saying or thinking or being.

The reality is that we're going to need His help because there’s too much in life that we’ve never come up against yet. There’s too much of life that we’ve already battled against and lost. But this time, this time we have something bigger than us to lean on. And while it may be strange or foreign or awkward to lean on His help and admit that we need it so badly, it's best that we all understand that we've already been given that help. He’s already overcome all that is still coming. And He won’t leave us to face it alone. Because again, that’s just now who He is.

He’s been in the fire. He’s known the lion’s den. He’s carried our cross and died out death and entered our grave. He knows all about it. And since He knows what it’s like, and just how much we struggle to handle it, we can be certain that the same God who saves through fire and flood will be there to get us through whatever tries to keep us from getting through to Him.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold