The View from My Place – “The Blessing of the Process”

My wife and I were talking this morning about Jesus’ cry from the cross: “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34). In this dramatic moment, Jesus was enduring emotional abuse, physical torment, and spiritual agony. But it’s important to note that Jesus wasn’t crying out to ask His Father to deliver Him from His suffering; He fully understood that His agony was the price He was born to pay. Even before He was arrested, He knew He could have avoided it altogether by asking His Father to rescue Him. No, this cry was all about one thing and one thing only: His relationship with His Father. It was as if He was saying, “Father, I can endure everything else. I can lose everything else. But You are everything to me!”

Theologians have long debated the experience that prompted Jesus’ words, but regardless of any interpretation one thing remains true regardless: the priority of Jesus’ relationship with His Father. It was His most prized possession. Prior to those words, even in His agony He had prayed for the forgiveness of those who had crucified Him, given eternal life to one of the thieves hanging on a cross next to Him, and taken care of arrangements for His mother. But then came that agonized cry. As Jesus processed His distress with the Father, He apparently received spiritual comfort from Him, for He then spoke of His thirst, stated His redemptive work was finished, and finally said, “Father, into Your hands I commit my Spirit.” And then He died.

For us, this astonishing moment in history teaches us that, like Jesus, the most important aspect of our lives is our relationship with God. Suffering and hardship, as well as the pleasures and triumphs of life, are all portals to take us to that richer place in Him. We are truly blessed if we can value all our life experiences as such and not just our preferred outcomes. We are blessed if our primary aspiration is not getting the life we want but trusting in and experiencing God in the life we have. And God, by His indwelling Spirit, wants to be a partner with us in all our processing of life to give us those blessings, just as He has given it to others. “Whom have I in heaven but You? And earth has nothing I desire besides You” (Psalm 73:25).