Lent Day 44 (Saturday)

Exercise:  Cycling 75 miles.  This was the 3rd of the Assault on Mount Mitchell training rides.  I'm still working out why I'm getting so nauseated on these rides, but at least I managed to get through the ride improving on my climbing on almost all segments that I had done before.  

Verse:

Isaiah 53:3-4
New International Version (NIV)
3 He was despised and rejected by mankind,
    a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
    he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
4 Surely he took up our pain
    and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
    stricken by him, and afflicted.

Thoughts: For people today, the Saturday before Easter is a time of preparation.  Cleaning the house, getting the Easter dinner plans finished up.  For some it means going to church for a Saturday Evening service.  I have to imagine what it meant for the disciples and first followers of Christ.  Jesus was dead, they were being hunted.  They were scared.  They were in hiding.  They had to have felt lost, and be questioning their faith in the words of Christ.  They also could not even go properly mourn, because it was the Sabbath.  Beyond being the Sabbath, it was still Passover.  They had to wait until Sunday to even start to properly mourn the loss of their leader, their friend, their God.  

I can remember plenty of times where I have felt lost.  Not knowing what God's plan for me is, even questioning if I was truly saved or not.  Even throughout all of that, I never had to question if the foundation of my faith was dead.  I had the comfort of knowing that God was alive, and that he wanted a personal relationship with me as much as I deeply desired a personal relationship with Him.  When put into perspective, I haven't had it so bad.