Charles Swindoll is Senior Pastor of Stonebriar Community Church in Frisco, TX, and Chancellor of Dallas Theological Seminary.
We typically view circumstances, especially those involving loss, as difficult because reality does not fulfill our expectations. Moreover, the impression that God has abandoned us to our suffering only intensifies the pain of loss and the frustration of difficulties. The two followers on the road to Emmaus undoubtedly felt God‑forsaken as they mourned the death of their dreams. Ironically, the very perspective that caused their pain kept them from seeing Jesus in their presence.
Let me encourage you to release your expectations. Hand them over to God, and open your hands to receive whatever He chooses to place in them. Here is a simple prayer that I recently discovered and have found to be of great help in recent days:
Lord, I am willing
To receive what You give;
To lack what You withhold;
To relinquish what You take
To suffer what You inflict;
To be what You require.
It was this mentality those two disciples lacked. Jesus helped them gain a divine, eternal perspective by teaching them from the Scriptures. Starting with the story of Genesis, applying the lyrics of the poets, and expositing the words of the prophets, He demonstrated how the sacrificial death of the Messiah was required to defeat evil. He very likely reminded them of the “Servant Songs” in the book of Isaiah, one of their favorite prophets. These songs feature a recurring figure called “the Servant of the Lord,” who will bring justice to the world (Isa. 42:1‑4), lead His people into a right relationship with God (49:5), enlighten the nations and bring salvation to everyone (49:6), endure unjust humiliation (50:6), and bear the divine punishment others deserve (52:13 ‑ 53:12).
The final song applauds the Servant for His sacrifice and extols His path to glory through His own humiliation. He is portrayed as a lamb led to an altar and slaughtered upon it as a sin offering. In the Hebrew temple, the brutal rite of animal sacrifice taught the worshiper that sin is costly and that “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). God established the practice as a means of giving His people grace. In the case of the Servant, unlike the Hebrew sacrifice in which one lamb was received by God as a token for one person's sin,
He was pierced through for our transgressions,
He was crushed for our iniquities;
The chastening for our well‑being fell upon Him,
And by His scourging we are healed.
All of us like sheep have gone astray,
Each of us has turned to his own way;
But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all
To fall on Him (Isa. 53:5-6).