This year we’re collaborating with writers across the Augustine Collective, a network of student-led Christian journals, to bring you a series of short devotional articles during this season of Lent, the 40-day period prior to Easter. Find this series also published by Cornell’s Claritas and UC Berkeley’s TAUG.
In my time as a Christian, I have had many “mountaintop” experiences, times where I experienced the joy of the Lord. You may relate to this—a retreat that set your heart on fire for the Gospel, a sermon that bolstered your resolve to live for Christ, a season where it was a delight to go to the Lord and reap the riches that He has given us in His Word.
But for the last couple months, this has not been the case for me. It feels like I have been pushing through a spiritual wilderness—every prayer and Bible-reading is laborious, being in Christian community is exhausting, and the call to love feels impossibly difficult. And to compound all of that, it feels like there is no end in sight. I am just trudging along, hoping against hope that soon, I will find an oasis in the middle of this desert.
As I have meditated on Psalm 130, one verse in particular has stood out to me: “My soul waits for the LORD more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning.” [1] When I read this verse, I imagine a weary watchman laboring through the night, tempted to fall asleep. What keeps him going? It is the certainty that though there are no present signs, the morning is coming—so he watches eagerly for that fledgling ray of sunshine.
The watchman had an assured hope that the morning would surely come, but we Christians have an even greater and more unshakeable hope in God’s faithfulness, for it is even more certain than the coming of the morning. If we are in Christ, we have received the ultimate seal of our God’s steadfast and never-ending love for us. When we doubt in our hearts that we can hope in the Lord, when we are weary, we need look no further than Jesus, the perfect son of God, sent to give his life for undeserving sinners like us. In the words of Paul, “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” [2]
Though I see no present signs of the dawn breaking on the horizon, I truly can hope in the Lord, “For with the LORD there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption.” [3] As surely as the sun will rise tomorrow, I can be sure that my Lord is orchestrating this season of spiritual dryness to display his never-ending love and perfect redemption.
Jacob is a third-year at UC Berkeley studying molecular cell biology.
[1] Psalm 130:6 (ESV)
[2] Romans 8:32 (ESV)
[3] Psalm 130:7 (ESV)
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