It Is Going To Be Okay

I find myself want­ing to reas­sure every­one that it is going to be okay. It is easy to look at oth­ers and see the unnec­es­sary fears they face. They do not real­ize how less real those fears look to us. They are mostly real only to them. It is a com­mon human trait. Our pri­vate fears seem more real than the ones we observe in oth­ers. Self-assurance does not come easy. While con­sol­ing oth­ers, we seem unable to con­sole ourselves.

Many years ago, I hosted a sem­i­nar for peo­ple that were tired of feel­ing empty. I did not know who would show up. Sure enough, twenty of the best and the bright­est were there in the room. The very peo­ple that I thought would have the fullest lives felt the emp­ti­est. The park­ing lot looked like a lux­ury car deal­ers con­ven­tion. These peo­ple were dressed to the nines. They appeared to have the good life going for them, but they (like the Rich Young Ruler in the life of Jesus) were haunted by some­thing miss­ing. They just needed some­one to tell them it was going to be okay.

It is going to be okay. The sun will come up. The bills will be man­aged if not paid imme­di­ately. We will eat and have all of the oppor­tu­ni­ties afforded by the cur­rent era. Grav­ity is a won­der­ful con­stant. We will not fall off the planet. Still, we would like to look up into the sky at a giant lov­ing face that peers down to us gen­tly and says, “It is going to be okay!”

After the res­ur­rec­tion, Jesus returned to his fol­low­ers with a relaxed sense of it being okay. What­ever the meta­phys­i­cal obsta­cle between God and peo­ple, it had been removed. Grasp­ing that is the task of faith. Liv­ing like two peo­ple walk­ing with Jesus unknow­ingly, but reas­sured by his pres­ence (like the two on the road to Emmaus) is where we are now. God’s reas­sur­ance is sub­tle. He is not going to do the face in the sky thing.

Yes, your life will appear to you as a major mess, but it is going to be okay.