By: Clara Costello
I don’t know about you, but the seemingly unending days are beginning to blur together. As I write this, Kansas City has been under Stay-at-Home orders for over a month.
I realized there is a word for what I’m feeling.
It’s more than tiredness, or unease, or insecurity,
although I have felt those things in abundance.
I think what I’m feeling,
what we’re feeling,
is weariness.
In so many ways --
I’m bone weary,
soul weary,
life weary.
My body aches for the nearness of family, friends, co-workers, and covenant church members. How I long to hug and high five and throw my head back in laughter, and not have to second guess how far away I should stand from someone in the grocery store.
My soul aches from the severity of sin. I see its pervasiveness in my life, and in the lives of others, as one thing after another comes to light. Like always, there’s nowhere I can run to escape.
My very life, at some points, can feel wearisome. Is there any end in sight? Is there any hope for the future? Or will this virus and its innumerable consequences continue to ravage the world as we know it?
Life is not supposed to be this way.
This was never how we were intended to live.
And yet, this is exactly how believers should expect to live.
In some ways, this time of pandemic and panic is a microcosm of the believer’s experience.
We live in the already but not yet tension of redemption,
where our souls have already been justified, we are being sanctified, but we are not yet glorified. [i]
How long, O Lord? How long until you return and gather your people to yourself?
This time of staying-at-home isn’t the first time that believers have waited expectantly for a day in the future when all will be made right again.
What a relief.
In some ways, I think it is okay to feel these things --
Weariness, as we acknowledge that things are not as they should be. Creation itself groans, so we can groan, too, and ask the Lord to bring restoration and redemption. [ii]
Restlessness, as it reminds us that this world is not our home and we are not the masters of our own fate. [iii]
But in other ways,
And even in much of this,
I am reminded that these are not burdens to carry alone. [iv]
We are not alone.
The Lord fights with us, for us, and alongside us.
And because of this,
I have nothing to fear,
I have no lack, because the Lord is my shepherd. [v]
He holds the future, he guides our steps, [vi]
And he propels us to wait expectantly. [vii]
He is the good and gracious king who does not fail, will not change, and is always in control. [viii]
We do not just wait for the virus to subside or the orders to change.
Ultimately, we wait for the return of Christ, [ix]
Where he will make all things new
And make the sad things come untrue.
This is the day we long for. [x]
We can wait expectantly in hopefulness of these truths, because Romans 5 tells us that godly hope will never put us to shame. [xi]
Our hope is not that things will get easier, or that the world will go back to normal,
But that the Lord will draw us to Himself,
That his glory will be made manifest in these times,
And that one day, we will be made like him. [xii]
So in the meantime,
In the day-by-day,
One-day-at-a-time world we’re living in,
Let’s throw off our weariness,
Throw off our worry and our burdens
And sins which so easily entangle,
And run towards Jesus, [xiii]
Confessing that we have carried burdens that are not ours to hold
And running to the rock of ages,
cleft for our hiding and helping and healing.
We fix our eyes on Jesus,
The founder and perfecter of our faith,
And we press on, and press in to the prize of
Knowing and loving Jesus all our days. [xiv]
In our weariness and our weeping,
And in our waiting,
We can be hopeful
That God Himself will confirm, restore, establish, and strengthen.
And that one day,
One great day coming,
We will see Him as He is,
And we will be like him. [xv]
Maranatha, come, Lord Jesus.
[i] Romans 8:30
[ii] Romans 8:22-23
[iii] Hebrews 13:14; James 4:15
[iv] Matthew 11:28-30
[v] Psalm 23:1
[vi] Psalm 25:4-5
[vii] 1 Peter 1:8-9
[viii] Hebrews 13:8
[ix] Titus 2:13
[x] Revelation 21:5
[xi] Romans 5:1-5
[xii] 1 John 3:2
[xiii] Hebrews 12:1-2
[xiv] Philippians 3:12-14
[xv] 1 Peter 5:10