Home | About Us | Bishop's Office | 2024 Lenten Devotions | Monday, March 25, 2024

BISHOP'S OFFICE

We all experience times in our lives when we feel overwhelmed by the difficult circumstances that we personally come up against and by painful conditions in our environment that impact us. As a person of faith, I was taught as a child to never question God’s presence and to look to the Lord as my source of help and strength. I have discovered across these many years that no matter how deep and abiding one’s faith and hope is in Jesus Christ that we will find ourselves asking God, how much more and how much longer can we bear the struggles we endure. How many of us have prayed to God and found that we had no words but questions?

As I read this passage, I can imagine the Israelites asking many questions as they found themselves in exile, feeling defeated and abandoned. The prophet Isaiah proclaims a message of hope and reassures the people of Israel that despite their present circumstances and conditions that the Lord was with them and was upholding them right there in the middle of their suffering. Isaiah declares that God will send a servant who will bring justice and healing to the nations, and he will not be defeated by sin and darkness. As God’s covenant people, God will redeem them and will empower them to be God’s agents of love, light, justice, and hope to the nations and to the world.

When we feel far from God’s presence or feel that God is far from us, let us remember that Jesus is our strength, our deliverer, and our hope. Jesus is right there with us in the middle of our circumstances. Our doubts and questions will never separate us from this promise or from God’s presence.

God help us to always place our trust and hope in you.
Remind us that you always hear us when we pray!

Bishop Tracy S. Malone wrote this devotion for publication in The Upper Room Disciplines: A Book of Daily Devotions 2024, available at www.cokesbury.com.