"do you believe this?"

If you tell me Christian commitment is a kind of thing that has happened to you once and for all like some kind of spiritual plastic surgery, I say go to, go to, you're either pulling the wool over your own eyes or trying to pull it over mine. Every morning you should wake up in your bed and ask yourself: "Can I believe it all again today?" No, better still, don't ask it till after you've read The New York Times, till after you've studied that daily record of the world's brokenness and corruption, which should always stand side by side with your Bible. Then ask yourself if you can believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ again for that particular day. If your answer's always Yes, then you probably don't know what believing means. At least five times out of ten the answer should be No because the No is as important as the Yes, maybe more so. The No is what proves you're human in case you should ever doubt it. And then if some morning the answer happens to be really Yes, it should be a Yes that's choked with confession and tears and. . . great laughter.  -Frederick Buechner


Many of the things I've seen in Uganda over the past 4 months have led me to question the presence of a tender and merciful God in the world... how can they not? The disease, the poverty, the witchcraft, the corruption, the darkness; the list goes on, and it's overwhelming. Other days, hope and redemption among those same things lead me all the more to cry out with belief--the Gospel of this God-man, Jesus, who showed us that life is more powerful than death is so unbelievable and so good.


Martha knows. This morning I read the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead in John 11, and after the miracle Jesus says to her,


"I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believe in me will never die. Do you believe this?" 


Martha replies, "I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is come into the world."


A resounding Yes. I hope that your Easter is a day of Yes, like Martha, and that it's choked with confession and tears and great laughter.