Trusting God through loss and surrender
Trust through loss
Short reflections to be still with, drawn from Bible passages in 2 Samuel 1:23, Acts 7:55-56, Luke 22:42 and John 20:15.
☀ Morning moment
Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives. In their death, they were not divided. They were swifter than eagles. They were stronger than lions.
2 Samuel 1:23
We assume that grief for an enemy must be secretly relieved, that when the man who hunted you finally falls, something in you quietly celebrates. David breaks that assumption open.
When the news reaches him at Ziklag, that Saul and Jonathan have died on Gilboa, David tears his clothes, fasts until evening, and then does something unexpected. He writes a song, taught it to the people of Judah, so it would be sung for generations. Not a victory song for the throne now open to him, but a lament for the king who tried to kill him and the friend who loved him.
The song moves from public cry, how the mighty have fallen, into something tender and specific: Saul's bow, Jonathan's love, the two of them named together though their lives were so different. David refuses to separate what death has joined. He grieves the whole man, faults and all.
This gives words for the grief that has no clean edges, the person you loved and struggled with, the relationship that ended before it was mended. David does not smooth it over. He sings it.
Today
Today, as the weekend slows and Sunday draws near, write down the name of someone you have lost, whether the parting was gentle or hard. Beside their name, write one honest sentence, of thanks, or of what remains unfinished. Read it aloud once.
✦ Lunch moment
But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up steadfastly into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!”
Acts 7:55-56
Standing. Not seated. Everywhere else in the New Testament, when someone pictures Jesus at the right hand of God, He is seated, His work finished, His rule settled. Here, with stones already in men's hands, He is on His feet.
Stephen does not look up because of what he sees. He is already full of the Holy Spirit before the heavens open. The looking up is not a reward for good behavior under pressure, it is simply what a man full of the Spirit does when the crowd closes in.
The vision changes nothing about the outcome. The stones still fall. It costs him his life, that same afternoon. But it changes him. A man who sees Jesus on His feet for him can, in the next breath, kneel and ask forgiveness for the very hands throwing the stones.
Maybe today is not a stoning. Maybe it is just a hard conversation still unresolved, a body that will not cooperate, a Saturday that was supposed to feel lighter than it does. This text does not promise the pressure will lift. It says something about where Jesus is standing while it does not.
Today
Step outside for a moment before you sit down to eat. Look up at the actual sky for ten seconds, and say quietly, out loud if you can, one name of someone under real pressure right now, then let Jesus be the one standing for them today.
◐ Afternoon moment
saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”
Luke 22:42
The ground under the olive trees is cold. Somewhere close, three men have stopped fighting sleep and lost. There is no crowd here, no audience, just stones and roots and a voice that will not stay steady.
Notice what Jesus says first. Not surrender, but a request. Remove this cup. In the prophets that cup is the cup of wrath, of judgment poured out to the last drop. He knows exactly what He is asking to be spared, and He asks for it plainly, without polishing the words into something more spiritual than they are.
Then the second half, and it does not soften the first. Not my will, but yours. Two true sentences pressed together, and the second one does not erase the pain of the first. The cup is not removed. He drinks it anyway. That is the part we would rather skip past.
This is a strange comfort for a Saturday afternoon, when the house is quiet enough to hear your own thoughts. Maybe there is a cup in front of you too, something you would very much like removed before tomorrow comes. You do not have to pretend otherwise in front of God.
Today
Find a quiet corner of the house this afternoon and say both halves of this prayer out loud, your own honest request first, then the surrender, even if the second sentence comes out shaky.
☾ Evening moment
Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?” She, supposing him to be the gardener, said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”
John 20:15
The grass in that garden would have been wet with dew, the air still grey with early light. A stone had been rolled back from an opening cut into rock, and a woman was on her knees at the entrance, her eyes swollen, her hands empty. She had come with spices for a body that was no longer there.
Mary Magdalene did not expect to be asked anything. She had come to grieve, to finish a task, to sit with her loss in the only way left to her. And then a voice asks the simplest, most searching question anyone can ask a person in tears: why are you weeping?
It is not a rebuke. Jesus already knows what has happened. But He lets her say it, lets her name the emptiness before He gives her anything else. Before resurrection is explained, grief is heard.
Saturday evenings often carry the leftovers of a week nobody quite finished processing: a hard conversation, a worry about someone you love, a quiet disappointment you swallowed and moved past. This question does not rush past any of that either. It waits at the entrance of whatever you have not yet said out loud.
Today
Before you go to sleep tonight, say out loud, or write down on paper, the one thing that has made you weep or ache this week. Then speak the name of Jesus after it, the way Mary did the moment she recognized His voice.
Read these passages in the World English Bible (WEB)
Tap a passage to read the full text right here.
23Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives. In their death, they were not divided. They were swifter than eagles. They were stronger than lions.
55But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up steadfastly into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God,
56and said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!”
42saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”
15Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?” She, supposing him to be the gardener, said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”
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