Reset

Bonnie Sala: What do you do when the thing you prayed for doesn't happen? When hope itself seems to have died. I'm Bonnie Salo with Reset. The Bible book of Luke contains a remarkable account of Jesus's encounter with two of his followers on the very day he rose from the dead. They were walking along a road grieving and confused over Jesus's death when a stranger fell into step beside them. They poured out their grief to him, not realizing this stranger was the risen Jesus himself. Speaking of Jesus, they said, we had hoped he was the Messiah who had come to rescue us.

The Messiah was the rescuer their people had waited generations for, the one they expected to free them from political oppression. They believed Jesus was that person. We had hoped. Those may be among the saddest words in the Bible because they're spoken in the past tense. They weren't saying we don't understand. They were saying we hoped and now we don't. But Jesus did something unexpected. He reshaped their understanding. He walked them through the writings and promises their own faith was built on, showing how the suffering they had witnessed in Jesus's death wasn't a failure of God's plan.

It was the plan. Jesus didn't shame them for getting their expectations wrong. He taught them to see the same events differently at walking pace with endless patience. He will do the same for you. Maybe you've said something like we had hoped the marriage would survive. We had hoped the treatment would work. We had hoped God would come through. If your picture of God has been cracking lately, perhaps it's not your faith that is dying. Perhaps a distortion is falling away to make room for something truer. I'm Bonnie Salo. Ready to grow your faith? Discover practical tools and more at guidelines.org.