Day 2: A sweetness to the soul

The people I admire most in this life all have one thing in common.

A soul at rest.

I have watched and listened to their stories. I have seen the cancer and the children dying, witnessed the rejection of loved ones and the devouring beast of poverty, heard the pain of past mistakes and families broken and hearts battered and bewildered.

They have suffered.

But they know something. Something big. Something I want.

Once my mom brought home in the endless boxes of books at my house a book called A Sweetness to the Soul. I never read it, and when I went back years later to find it, it was gone. But that title grabbed hold of me.

That’s it. The secret to not just a surviving, but a thriving life.

A sweetness to the soul.

How do we find it? What is the secret?

Jesus promises a joyful life is possible, here and now. He tells us we can rest.

This is the secret I want to explore for the next 30 days. I hope you will join me. I pray He will lead us deeper into the sweetness of His love, a love that promises rest. Hope. Joy. It is a place I yearn for. And it is why Jesus came here to be among us, to be broken like us.

He came to point the way.

It starts with a bunch of homely fishermen and outcasts huddled in a room with a wanted man. They have given up everything, little as it is, to be with Him, and now He tells them He is leaving them. The world outside rages, and somehow they know that when they leave that room life will never be the same again.

And fear, our familiar companion, closes around their bewildered hearts.

They thought He would always be there. They thought He was going to conquer the world, miracle-work His way to the top. They thought they had found The Answer. And now He is . . . leaving?

Suddenly life doesn’t look like they planned it. Their expectations have been shattered. This? This is the life He offers? A step into the unknown darkness of suffering?

What do you do when everything you thought you lived for is turned upside down? When you suddenly aren’t so sure anymore?

Likewhen rockslides wipe out families. Or when arthritis turns athletic toes ugly. Or when innocent people die at the hands of corrupt power. Or when the One you thought was here to make things right tells you He is about to die.

But He kneels and washes their feet, one by one. He looks up into each frightened pair of eyes. And there it is gazing back at them.

Peace.

Rest.

Soul-sweetness.

“Don’t be troubled,” He says. “Don’t be afraid. Just believe.”

And He tells them many things and gives them many promises and commands to help them in the days to come. But above all, He gives them the secret.

The thing that drove Him to enter the womb of a virgin girl and push into our muck. The thing that let him sleep in a storm-tossed boat, look into the eyes of a demon-possessed man, calmly rebuke the leaders who wanted to kill Him. The thing that kept Him silent under the whips, sturdy under the weight of wooden beams, heaven-fixed as nails tore His flesh. This thing was with Him as He cried out for God to forgive His killers, then as He gave up everything.

 

It is the secret of the abiding life.

And He offers it to us.

How I want it. Don’t you?