AND THIS TOO SHALL PASS

This is a wonderful sentiment. I’ve said it on occasion myself. However saying it and experience it are never going to be the same thing.

It is a reality of each person’s struggle in life that we can not always have the same feelings about a crisis if it isn’t happening to us. In such situations we might mean well by making the comment “and this too shall pass,” but to be honest I’m not persuaded it honestly makes someone feel better.

For me, uncertainty is the big soul killer. There is nothing more disheartening or agonizing to be in that wasteland of the unknown. It can be even more difficult if one doesn’t have a clear direction from the Lord in terms of his will.

Contrary to what some people might claim, I really think it isn’t unusual to be in a position where we trust in the Lord with any clear path of understanding. And it isn’t hard in such situations to honestly feel a sense of being lost.

Neither is it hard to not wonder why God doesn’t always grant us the light to clarify out confusion. They are all questions that sooner or later will arise in the mind of a believer going through those dark passages of wonder.

Regardless of the experience or the fact that valleys do pass it doesn’t mean we are prepared at the moment of crisis to accept that response. The greater the crisis, the more the heart may faint and reach a level where it is difficult to continuing truly be able to feel the capacity for trusting.

What does knowing this too shall pass truly do in terms of our thinking and faith? It is perhaps a plateau of remembrance where we stroll to try and find a oasis of memory to refresh our parched spirit. Only it may just seem like a distant mirage that we will never reach.

In my life this too shall pass has not always meant that a crisis ended without consequences. It is being aware of this that only heightens the anxiety later if another crisis occurs. So for me that time of experience leaves me less inclined to want to try a placate some other person with the comment “and this too shall pass.”

To me the part that passes in that individual crisis. In the sense that we understand nothing last forever. But trying to be dishonest about one’s feelings is from my view not the solution.

Which is why, I think during those harshest of moments it is a time to truly bear one’s real feelings to the Lord. How often it seems we are told this isn’t a sign of faith. Yet, what is the better way to express faith than to take that burden to the Lord?

Will that guarantee that the crisis and the consequences will disappear? No. Does it assure it will even mean we will be delivered as we feel we deserve or want? No it doesn’t mean that either. It does however become a point of confrontation where we face that mirror of truth and we can chose to do it by looking at what is really there of lying to ourselves. God will know the difference and deep down we will too.