“Jesus replied, ‘You do not understand now what I am doing, but someday you will.” John 13:7

About a month ago my car developed a rough idle. I made an appointment with the mechanic and received what I dreaded hearing-my car would need a $462 repair. I had just had it in the shop at the beginning of the year for a $600 brake job and was not looking forward to another repair expense so soon after the first one. Fortunately, my vehicle was still drivable, so I decided to wait until after my business trip to Chicago that I had to take in early April before scheduling the repair.

One week prior to the repair, while pulling into a grocery store parking lot, I heard a pop and hissing sound. I thought I had run over something and punctured a tire but didn’t hear any hissing when I shut the engine off and had exited my vehicle. I thought perhaps it was fluke, commenced with my shopping and then drove home. The hissing, however, was once again noticeable when I pulled into my driveway. Anxiety overtook my overthinking brain as I began to wonder what else was wrong and how much the additional repair would cost me. I had someone come to my house and diagnose the engine hissing the problem. I googled what suspension issues cause a shimmy and what the estimated cost of repairs could be because my vehicle was also experiencing some shaking when I reached certain speeds. I cancelled all plans that involved extra spending or extra driving that week and even considered just parking my car and walking everywhere. If we hadn’t had freezing rain/snow predicted for weather that week I probably would’ve chosen walking as my mode of transportation.

This past Friday I took my car in for repairs. I told the mechanic about the additional concerns and asked him to give me a quote for it all before he started any repairs. I left my vehicle at the shop and walked home. That was at 10:00 in the morning. At 1:00 in the afternoon, I called to check on the status of my vehicle. I learned they were running behind and hadn’t even looked at it yet. I thought to myself, “Great! Now I have to wait longer to know how much this is going to cost and who knows if my car will even get fixed today.” Three more hours went by and called again. Not only was my vehicle fixed but guess what the final bill of sale was…TWENTY DOLLARS! Remember that hissing sound coming from the engine that started one week earlier? What I thought was going to be an additional repair/expense, turned out to be the whole problem. I had been praying and asking God’s help over this situation but what did I ask for? Well, I only ask God to provide what my budget would not be able to cover. What did He do instead? He revealed the whole problem with one simple fix and saved me $442!

Today is Easter Sunday. For the next 24 hours, my social media is going to be flooded with photos of families in matching “church” outfits, gatherings centered around ham dinners and easter egg hunts, and “He is Risen!” posts. Churches all over the world will be preaching on Christ’s resurrection, some with smoke-filled theatrical reenactments of a stone rolling away and a boisterous choir or worship team belting out “UP FROM THE GRAVE HE AROSE…” Salvation and Christ conquering death will be the ultimate takeaways preachers will hope their flocks glean from today’s sermons. But what if Christ’s death and resurrection includes a message we are missing? What if there is an additional lesson we need to learn from Holy Week and especially from Resurrection Sunday?

Jesus’ disciples walked with him for three years and knew Him more intimately than any of His followers and probably even more than Jesus’ own mother. Yet, Jesus warned His disciples of His impending crucifixion, and they did not comprehend what He actually meant. Peter even tried to prevent Jesus from being arrested, and instead of his best friend who was under attack joining the fight, He stopped Peter and call him “satan.” Jesus preached salvation through death and resurrection before He was ever arrested, beaten and killed and although His followers believed He was God’s son, none of them understood that He was actually going to die and rise again three days later. The Old Testament prophesies about the Savior and gives hints to the people of that day of God’s ultimate plan for redemption, yet God’s chosen also could not fathom the events that actually occurred.

But then again, isn’t the Bible filled with examples of how God speaks or gives a promise, skips the details on when or how He will fulfill that promise and humans create their plans of just how that promise will be fulfilled? When the angel told Mary she would give birth to the Savior, that angel left out the gory details of what her son would endure or that His life would be the ultimate sacrifice that redeemed everyone. God told Abraham He would be the father of all nations, yet Abraham’s wife was barren and although God gave Abraham two sons, one of which was not a part of His original promise, yet Abraham never lived to see the full extent of God’s promise. God told Joseph he would govern over his brothers, but complete opposite happened first. Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery; he ended up falsely accused of a crime he did not commit and imprisoned for about 14 years. It was while he was in prison, that God fulfilled the promise He had given Joseph, in a dream, so long ago. Joseph interprets Pharoah’s dream, gets released from prison and becomes second in command. God uses Joseph’s leadership promotion to not only save Joseph’s family but also sustain an entire nation during a severe famine. God didn’t give Mary, Abraham or Joseph all the details. He just gave them a promise and expected them to trust Him without knowing how He would deliver on those promises.

Today, as you celebrate Christ’s resurrection, take time to reflect on the ways how God has redeemed your life, your circumstances or saved your family. How has His ways exceeded all of the ways you thought He would do it? Don’t be surprised if He gives you a promise and then allows really hard circumstances that look like the complete opposite as the catalyst for keeping His word. Jeremiah 29:11 reminds us of God’s plans for our lives being good and His promise of a hope-filled future. But Romans 8:28 reminds us that God uses all things including, stressful, painful or circumstances we did not ask for or can humanly comprehend, for our good and His glory.

Although the salvation story and Christ conquering death are the most important takeaways one should glean on Easter Sunday, Jesus’ ministry, death and rising from the dead should also remind us that we do not serve a Hallmark movie kind of God. Our faith walk is not based on a meet-cute of God’s promise, some minor interference or unexpected plot-twist and human predictable happy endings. No, we serve a God whose ways are much higher than ours and whose deeds are beyond human comprehension. If anything, our faith walk can resemble a Lifetime Movie Network original complete with our personal Judases and Job-like experiences that include plot twists packed with betrayals and losses of people or things that can never be replaced. We pray, we believe, we fast and then the opposite happens. We experience crises or even tragedies we simply do not understand. When question what the hell God is doing, He gives us a John 13:7 answer. We are not meant to understand what He is doing while we are in the fiery furnace or lion’s den situation. It is only later, with no exact timeline of when later will be, where God will give us the details needed to grasp or comprehend what God is doing in the right now.

In spite of all the mystery and unknown, we should never cease to pray or ask God for help, to intercede on behalf of our families and to believe that God will restore what the enemy has stolen from us. What should we cease doing? Expecting God to deliver on His promises in quick, easy, nontraumatic, simplistic kinds of way. Keep standing on God’s promise He gave you and trust Him to answer, when He deems the time is right and in the very way He knows is the absolute best way. Even if it feels He is crushing you right now, He will never fail you or fail to keep His word for you and your family.