When you come to the end of any season that’s been hard, tough or heartbreaking, it’s usually as difficult to conclude as it has been to live. The end of such a time often becomes the start of a soul’s long night of restlessness, reliving the struggle and re-experiencing its pain.
But into such days, moments or seasons of the soul, Jesus’ closing words from the cross speak a principle of discipleship laden with wisdom: “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit” (Luke 23:46).
There is something sublime about Jesus’ final words from the cross. Though sometimes overlooked, their message points the way to wisely conclude any bad day, any trying experience: Place it into the hands of God and leave it there.
There are dozens of life issues that call us to follow Jesus’ pathway in living through tough times, issues that are seldom as quick to pass as we would wish and that always call us to the cross to hear the Savior’s words again, “Into Your hands I commit.”
Committing ourselves into His hands may be the key for some of us to enter a new day—or new year—with newfound expectancy, notwithstanding the “bad” behind us.
For Jesus, the end of it all finally was revealed in a resurrection. For you and me—where “surrender” is truly made—there’s full reason to expect precisely the same.