I’ve Never Been So Ready for “Easter Week”

April 1, 2023 Heavenward SCOTTY SMITH I've Never Been So Ready for "Easter Week" SCOTTY SMITH   “I will refresh the weary and replenish every languishing soul“ (Jer. 31:25). “You have kept count of my tossings and put my tears in your bottle” (Ps. 56:8).   Lord Jesus, you rule from the throne of grace with eager welcome, great kindness, and burden-bearing love. When we are our weakest and “deplete-est”—like “flickering candles” and “bruised reeds” (Matt.12:20), you don’t critique us, you console us. Thank you for remembering our tossings and tears, but not our sins. Many of us in Nashville (and globally) are nearing sadness overload, as we bury loved ones and little ones. Our “heart-water” tank is running out, and we’re starting to weep dry tears. Numbness is something we both welcome and fear. Heart-peace, soul-rest, living-hope—you promise and provide all three, Jesus. Again, thank you. You shoulder-under the weight of our weariness. and walk with us in the ache of our waiting. In 73 years of life and 55 years of knowing you, I’ve never offered and heard so many, “How long, O Lord’s?” We really are ready for you to come back, Jesus. And we really are grateful “Easter week” is upon us. In the coming days we will ponder afresh why you came into our world, why you came into Jerusalem on the foal of a donkey, and why you came out of your tomb a week later. Because you did, the goodbyes we offer around these fresh graves are so painful, but so temporary. For you have born our sin and taken our judgment, killed death and robbed the grave. There is devastation in our hearts, but no separation from your love. We grieve so deeply, Jesus, but we grieve with real hope. So VERY Amen.     Wish you had a roundup of our best content? Subscribe to our weekly Update. SIGN ME UP! About Us    |     Council    |     Donate ©2020 The Gospel Coalition, All Rights Reserved. P.O. Box 170346 — Austin, TX 78717 Update Email  |  Unsubscribe

Loving Children, Stewarding Trauma, Trusting Jesus

March 31, 2023 Heavenward SCOTTY SMITH Loving Children, Stewarding Trauma, Trusting Jesus SCOTTY SMITH   “Jesus called the children to him and said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.’” Luke 18:15-16   Lord Jesus, compelled by your love for children and filled with competing emotions, we pray for those traumatized by the Covenant School tragedy. Help us channel our growing sadness, waves of anger, and sense of helplessness in service to others. Receive our wordless groans, streaming and yet-to-be-wept tears, and earnest pleas. We pray for children who have seen and heard things no child should ever experience. By all the means you chose—a direct work of the Holy Spirit, loving parents, family-to-family care, gifted counselors… hold and heal the hearts, minds, and imagination of children. Words fail us, but you won’t, Jesus. We pray for those seeking to be present and strong in the warzone of so much shock, pain, and confusion. Jesus, help them (us) steward their own grief and trauma, and accept their weakness and limits. Grant parents, pastors, counselors, and friends supernatural help, sufficient grace, and guiltless wisdom to take care of themselves. We pray for a fresh work of your Spirit and the life-giving power of the Gospel. Jesus, while the devil shouts and whispers, “Where was your trustworthy God on Monday?” … answer for us by saving many, redeeming the unimaginable, and empowering us to live and love to your glory. In this so-hard moment, until the Day of wiped-tears and all things new, Jesus you are with us and for us—alone worthy of our worship and trust.  So Very Amen. Wish you had a roundup of our best content? Subscribe to our weekly Update. SIGN ME UP! About Us    |     Council    |     Donate ©2020 The Gospel Coalition, All Rights Reserved. P.O. Box 170346 — Austin, TX 78717 Update Email  |  Unsubscribe

Hate Evil, Cling to Good, Adore Jesus

March 30, 2023 Heavenward SCOTTY SMITH Hate Evil, Cling to Good, Adore Jesus SCOTTY SMITH “Hate what is evil; cling to what is good” (Rom. 12:9). “O you who love the Lord, hate evil!” (Ps. 97:10). “Hate evil, and love good, and establish justice…” (Amos 5:15). “Love your enemies… for he (our Father) is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:35-36)   Lord Jesus, without your Word my imagination runs to places my feet should not take me. My heart conceives things. That if birthed, would turn my hands into clenched fists and agents of hate. Help me, Jesus, and others like me, who desperately need to “cling to what is good.” I have friends who heard the shots and smelled the smoke Monday in Covenant School. As a result, I have friends whose funerals will soon take place. Jesus, thank you for the call to hate evil, for no one hates evil more than you do. And no one has done more to defeat evil. Only you can bring resolution to the angry, fear-full, grasping demand in our hearts… “Somebody has to pay for this!” Jesus, you have. You already have, Jesus. The resolution we desperately crave won’t come through our revenge and retaliation, only through your resurrection and return. This coming Sunday is Palm Sunday, and four distinct cries will beg for our attention afresh—perhaps with more compelling power than ever: “Hosanna!” …  “Crucify him!” …  “It is finished!” … “He is not here; he has risen, just as he said!” Jesus, thank you, thank you, thank you. We cling to you as our only good, and adore you as our perfect Savior. Help us steward our anger, confusion, sadness, and fear. Help us hate only evil, by loving you more than we ever have. So Very Amen.     Wish you had a roundup of our best content? Subscribe to our weekly Update. SIGN ME UP! About Us    |     Council    |     Donate ©2020 The Gospel Coalition, All Rights Reserved. P.O. Box 170346 — Austin, TX 78717 Update Email  |  Unsubscribe

Entering Grief and Risking Hope

March 29, 2023 Heavenward SCOTTY SMITH Entering Grief and Risking Hope SCOTTY SMITH “Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope.” 1 Thess. 4:13   Heavenly Father, the grief was unrestrainable, the tenderness palpable, your presence undeniable. I went to bed last night close to numb from emotional exhaustion. I rise today grateful for the holy privilege of entering grief and risking hope. Yesterday, our church family was trusted with extending your tender mercies and safe harbor for grieving families, staff, and board members of Covenant School, and to pastors, elders, and deacons of Covenant Presbyterian Church. It was a long day, navigated along a grace-path that led us right into Jesus’ open-ended welcome. “Come to me all of you who are weary and heavily burdened. I will give you rest.” Some friends I’ve known for 40 years weeping uncontrollably—some of the strongest women and men I know rendered beautifully weak. Shocked parents falling into each other’s arms—needing to say nothing, not wanting to let go, so glad just to be together. Father, thank you for the unsought-gift, shared-calling, and difficult heart-work of grief. We grieve clumsily—often reluctantly, sometimes years after the trauma, loss, heart-rip. Father, teach us how to grieve, and how to enter each other’s grief. You will never walk us into hopeless-grief. Usually, hope holds us before we can risk it. And, hallelujah, the hope you give doesn’t replace our grief, it transforms it. Hope-kissed-grief makes us gentle, kind, and loving. But how trustworthy is our hope? Can it sustain the weight of our anguish, the anger in our hearts, and the fear that we feel? We’ll answer in this way, Father. We have never been more ready to celebrate Easter. Our hope is profoundly sure because Jesus’ tomb is completely empty. Hallelujah, and So Very Amen. Wish you had a roundup of our best content? Subscribe to our weekly Update. SIGN ME UP! About Us    |     Council    |     Donate ©2020 The Gospel Coalition, All Rights Reserved. P.O. Box 170346 — Austin, TX 78717 Update Email  |  Unsubscribe

Hold Us Tighter, Jesus

March 28, 2023 Heavenward SCOTTY SMITH Hold Us Tighter, Jesus SCOTTY SMITH “A cry is heard in Ramah— deep anguish and bitter weeping. Rachel weeps for her children, refusing to be comforted— for her children are gone” (Jer. 31:15). “Abhor what is evil… Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Rom. 12:9, 21). “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death... (Rev. 21:4)   Lord Jesus, extreme sadness, the vulnerability of fear and anger… tears, questions, disbelief, numbness… and one prolonged cry, “How long, O Lord?”—all of these come easy for us today, here in Nashville. First, we pray for grieving families, children, friends, colleagues, neighbors—those most directly impacted by the terror and trauma of the attack at Covenant School. Jesus, you do and will “hold us fast.” Hold us tighter. Hold us in our “deep anguish and bitter weeping.” Hold us as we hold one another. Hold us, as we cry out… When, Jesus, when? When will we never again have to pick caskets for our children, wear black, or be suspicious of anyone anywhere anytime? How long, Jesus—how much longer do we have to wait for defeated-evil to become eradicated-evil? That Day is certain, but we want it now. When will there never ever again be any form of harm? (Isa. 11:9). Until then, you tell us, “Don’t be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” But for the Gospel, this would mock our sensibilities, Jesus. Help us. Free us. Hold us tighter. Free us to live and love towards the Day when all swords, spears, and guns will become instruments of tilling, gardening, and mutual nourishment. (Isa. 2:4; Joel 3:12; Micah 4:3)—the eternal Day when we will we finally and forever “feast in the house of Zion” (Psalm 126:1-3). Jesus, we know in the courts of heaven, there’s a calendar of grace and providence. And we know if we knew what you know, our hearts would be at rest. But today… thank you for the freedom to hurt so deeply and ask so intensely for you to hurry-up the Day of wiped tears and no more death. So Very Amen.     Wish you had a roundup of our best content? Subscribe to our weekly Update. SIGN ME UP! About Us    |     Council    |     Donate ©2020 The Gospel Coalition, All Rights Reserved. P.O. Box 170346 — Austin, TX 78717 Update Email  |  Unsubscribe

It’s a Mercy Test, Not a Math Test

March 27, 2023 Heavenward SCOTTY SMITH It's a Mercy Test, Not a Math Test SCOTTY SMITH   “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.” 1 Pet. 4:12–13   Lord Jesus, this portion of your Word comes like a heavenly hug this March Monday—though, like kids, we sometimes pull away from even from your “hugs”. Suffering(s) between your resurrection and return shouldn’t surprise us, but focus, free, and form your heart in us. The “testing” of “fiery ordeals” isn’t like a pass-or-fail math test (hallelujah!), but a “mercy test”—a burning away of the dross of our selfishness and “earthbound-ness.” If we “miss-steward” (waste) suffering, it can easily become rocket fuel for fear, resentment, and unbelief. But the “way of the Gospel” is for hardship and heartache to deepen empathy and compassion in us, and make us more like you, Jesus. This isn’t making lemonade from lemons, or becoming “glass-half-full” people. It’s “participating in your sufferings” —for you are present wherever there is injustice and disease, brokenness and suffering, loss and lack. Gentle us to join you there, fellowship with you there, and serve with you there (Phil. 3:10). Give us joy in our tears and peace in our pain. Supersize our love as we come along side of fellow sufferers. Lord Jesus… thank you… you suffered once and for all for us on the cross, reconciling us forever to our Father. The Day of no more suffering of any kind is coming (Rev.21:1–5), and what a Day of “overjoy” that will be. So Very Amen.   Wish you had a roundup of our best content? Subscribe to our weekly Update. SIGN ME UP! About Us    |     Council    |     Donate ©2020 The Gospel Coalition, All Rights Reserved. P.O. Box 170346 — Austin, TX 78717 Update Email  |  Unsubscribe