Day 45: Jesus, You Lead Me On To A New Day

Jesus leads us out of despair, failure, difficulties, and sorrows on to a new place in His plan for our lives. When we are in the midst of these trials, we can feel as though we are in a black hole that goes on seemingly forever. But take heart. The Lord will lead you out. You see the Lord doing this again and again in Scripture. Look at the failure of Joseph’s brothers. They sold him into slavery and broke their father’s heart. But in the end, God was merciful even to them. Joseph rescued them in the great famine and brought them and their father to a safe place. When Joseph sent his brothers to bring the family back to Egypt, he said, “See that you do not become troubled along the way” (Genesis 45:24). I love those words. They point to a trustworthy God, who rescues us in spite of our failures. God can be trusted and He does not want us troubled along the way. Look at the disciples with Jesus. They could not stay awake with Jesus while in the garden of Gethsemane. They failed, not once or twice, but three times. Three times they could not watch and pray. Did Jesus fire them from serving Him? Did He leave them and look for better disciples? No! He said, “Get up, let us be going…” (Matthew 26:46). We need to remember that Jesus is so very different than people in the world. He does not respond or act the way people in the world react. He is more than a man…He is God. And He knows our hearts better than we understand ourselves. And He has taken us on as His own. He will lead us on to a new day. I firmly believe in the theology of the “new day” for failure, sin, sorry, difficulties, despair, and mourning. The Lord’s plan for us does NOT stop even though we feel we have come up against an immovable wall. The roadblocks we face in life are as paper to the Lord. I love what Oswald Chambers says: “The disciples went to sleep when they should have kept awake, and when they realized what they had done it produced despair. The sense of the irreparable is apt to make us despair, and we say – ‘it is all up now, it is no use trying any more.’ If we imagine that this kind of despair is exceptional, we are mistaken, it is a very ordinary human experience. Whenever we realize that we have not done that which we had a magnificent opportunity of doing, then we are apt to sink into despair; and Jesus Christ comes and says – ‘Sleep on now, that opportunity is lost forever, you cannot alter it, but arise and go to the next thing.’ Let the past sleep, but let it sleep on the bosom of Christ, and go out into the irresistible future with Him.”

My Response: Lord Jesus, today I lift my eyes from every crushing thing that could weigh me down and follow You as You lead me on into the irresistible future. In Jesus’ name, Amen.