Trust in God's Will? The Cross?

Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.
2 Corinthians 9:12




A Lutheran pastor tells the story of one of his parishioners, whom whenever the Pastor prayed with him would make the sign-of-the-cross when it was prayed that God's will be done. This was as this man lay in intensive care after open-heart surgery.

However, when this man's daughter visited him, she would dispute this by telling her father and the pastor that he be assured that God would heal him. The pastor recalled about this that the man seemed to take no comfort in his daughter's will but always made the sign-of-the-cross. This man knew and took comfort that our confidence in God's love and will for us is not in whether he will or will not heal us at times, but rather that in the Cross of Christ we were truly healed: "By His stripes we are healed." (Isaiah 53:5d) This pastor wrote of this incident: "As much as parishioners may want to see the hand of God in nature's beautiful sunrises, moving stories of conversion, or success in parish programs, it is in the cross of Christ and in bearing their own crosses that God chooses to reveal his heart to them."

Lying in intensive care totally dependent on the medical staff and equipment certainly can make us feel weak and helpless. But let us remember as this man did continually, in the weakness of our sin, Jesus became the punishment for them that we may be strong in faith. We learn and sing of this when little: "We are weak, but He is strong. Yes, Jesus loves me!" He loved us on the cross!

So, by making this sign-of-the cross when in weak and trying situations, we entrust ourselves to the One who loved us and gave Himself for us and the One who promised to never to leave us nor abandon us, but take us where He went, to heaven forever!

Blessed dependency on a more intimate and deeper reliance upon Jesus Christ, who meets our sin and suffering in His cross and empty tomb. Amen.