Holy Week DevotionalSample

After Jesus dies on the cross, His body is taken to be buried by a man named Joseph. For all of Saturday, Jesus' body lies in the tomb. Silent Saturday is the time between the crucifixion and the upcoming resurrection.

Maybe you feel like you're in that kind of season - a dark season or a season of waiting. Maybe you are praying for a miracle, but haven't seen it yet. Maybe it’s a season where you know there is a calling on your life, but you’re not operating in it yet. Maybe you feel like nobody sees you. We can look at those dark, silent seasons as a waste. But as we see throughout the Scriptures, nothing is wasted with God.

You see, the freedom that we have in Christ was reclaimed right there during that Saturday where it looked like it was all lost and dark. God does the greatest development in our life during the dark seasons. It might be a season of waiting, but a waiting season is never a wasted season.

Before cell phones, to take a picture you would take your little camera and put film in it, and then take the pictures. But you couldn't just immediately get the pictures. The photos would have to go to a professional who would take the film out in a darkroom to develop it. Life’s beautiful pictures are still developed in the dark rooms of life. You might feel like you're buried, but you are actually planted, and about to spring up into great victory.

This is what the gospel story shows us. That something has to die for a resurrection to eventually come. Our job is not to make it happen, but to surrender to the one that can make it happen. While you are waiting, God is working. While it is silent, keep surrendering. The times that it feels darkest, remember it will turn light again.

In that time that Jesus was sitting in the tomb, in that season where it looked like he was just waiting, he was actually working on our behalf. And he's doing the same thing in your life today.

Today as you pray: think about the dark seasons of your life, and ask God to bring to the surface how He is developing you.