Lent Devotional | Easter Sunday

Trusting in the Power of Resurrection

“God’s will for your life is Jesus.” A handful of us sat around the table at an uncle’s cottage, sharing food, drink and the evening sunset, when I received the gift of these words. The conversation had veered toward one of us younger Stiller’s trying to discern God’s will for the next chapter of our lives – as we often try to do, especially starting out – when the elder among us solved the problem, for me at least, with those seven words.

I find this resurrection-infused idea of God’s will for our life to be a relief. It is good news that God’s will might be mysteriously and simply Jesus instead of a specific path of events, people and places that we could blunder, or even miss entirely – zig when we should have zagged, as my mother would say. It feels spacious, with light and air, as wide as the lake outside the window.

Like other Gospel truths, this idea builds a nest in my heart mostly in times of pain and loss. If you have not lived long enough yet — and I hadn’t that cottage night with loons crying for each other in the distance – you might yet encounter a kind of sorrow from which you will wonder how one emerges whole again.

It will be in those times that the softness of presence and not the hardness of plan will likely be where you eventually find your comfort, and your way forward. Jesus rose from the dead. Jesus is the resurrection and the life. Jesus is with us, here and now. We will be with Jesus, then and there.

Surely, Jesus is God’s will for our lives.

Jesus is with us because we know he rose again and sits at the right hand of the Father, whole, alive and present in the mountains and the valleys, the heights and thanks be to God, in the depths. At the warm lakeside that night and deep in the ocean in which we may be swimming right now, we can trust in the presence of God during our darkest and lightest moments, because just look my friends, Jesus is alive.

Karen Stiller
Writer, Editor, Writing Coach,
Author of Holiness Here

Prayer

Thank you for the resurrection wonder of Jesus alive and with us. We are comforted by your presence through your Son and Holy Spirit, no matter what we face in this broken world. Your presence makes the world beautiful, even in pain. Help us trust in your presence and not worry about the plan. Help me believe. Amen.

Reflection

What would it be like for you to embrace a resurrection-infused belief that, no matter what happens, Jesus is with you? After the celebration of Resurrection Sunday, spend some time journalling: How would I live, love, dream and even plan my life differently if I really believed Jesus was with me? What would I do if I wasn’t so afraid?