Everyday Resurrections: The Divine Pattern of Healing and Transformation

Do you know that as a human being created in the image of God, you can experience everyday resurrections as part of God's pattern of healing and transformation? God has given us the abilities, the opportunities, and the means to experience new growth, renewal, and transformation in the places marked by death and loss.

Jesus Christ is the Risen Lord, the Lord of Resurrection and Redemption, and the Giver of life. If this life flows through us, so does His resurrection power.

Daily resurrections are the divine answer to loss and trauma. Life on this earth is a chain of small and big deaths: the death of things, relationships, dreams, and people we deeply treasure.

How do we deal with death? How can we overcome it? What is the way God has provided for us?

The Divine Pattern of Darkness and Light, Ends and Beginnings

Since the beginning of creation, God has implemented a divine pattern of night and day, death and resurrection, destruction and renewal. This is the divine cycle of ends and beginnings, transition, and change.

We find this pattern in the first chapter of Genesis. "God called the light 'day,' and the darkness He called 'night.' And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day." (Genesis 1:5, NIV)

The first day and all the days after that start with the evening, followed by the night before the morning sun rises. First is the night, and then comes the day.

This applies to creation, but it is also true for our lives. A day, a season, or a period starts with darkness: the darkness of physical or emotional pain and suffering in various forms. We go through a dark night of the soul, losing something we value or struggling with rejection, disappointment, doubt, anger, loneliness, and failure. Our hope dwindles, and our joy diminishes.

But a new day is coming, for "weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning" (Psalm 30:5, NIV).

The Creator of the night and day, the darkness and light, will not withhold His life and mercy from us. Dawn comes right after the darkest hour of the night. The best moments happen when we’ve already given up hope and don't expect anything.

Sudden joy rushes through our veins, triggered by a child's smile, a meeting with a stranger, a gentle hug from a friend, the stunning beauty around us, or unexpected good news.

Surprised, we can feel joy again. We fill our lungs with the breath of fresh life. We dare to hope again.

Perhaps you've lost the hope of building a family of your own. Don’t give up: today may be the day to get acquainted with your future partner.

Perhaps your dream of having a successful career as an artist has died. Don’t pull it away from your heart: today can be the day of a new start.

Or you've lost hope of seeing a loved one healed and free from addiction or of mending a broken relationship. Don’t stop putting your hope in the God of the Impossible.

If He could roll the heavy tombstone and let His life and light shine again in the dark grave, He can do this for you, too.

His mercies are new every day, and so are our possibilities to experience the renewal of our souls, bodies, lives, and relationships. Every morning, we open our eyes, resurrected from the "small death" of sleep, to experience God's fresh mercies. Again.

The Promise of AGAIN

This is the code word of everyday resurrections. God has encoded this word in nature and the recurring seasons, in our making, and in His mighty word.

Do you know God gives 15 "again" promises in the Book of Jeremiah, chapter 31?

Jeremiah gives these beautiful restoration prophecies immediately before severe disasters befall Israel. Even before death and loss strike, God wants Israel to know that He has a good plan and is working on how to restore the people. He gives them the powerful promise of "again" as a stable foundation of hope for redemption and a good future.

The foundation and the guarantee of our daily and eternal resurrections is God's everlasting love: "I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness." (Jeremiah 31:3, NIV)

When we are in the deepest of sorrows, God doesn't abandon us but thinks about how to deliver and restore us. He always has a plan.

Here are several promises of restoration and renewal containing the power of "again": • Again, we will be rebuilt. (verses 4, 28, 38)• Again, we will be given comfort and joy instead of sorrow and will be like a well-watered garden. (verses 4, 12, 13)• Again, we will be delivered and redeemed. (verse 11)• Again, we will be satisfied with abundance and God's bounty. (verse 14)• Again, we will be blessed and turned into a blessing. (verse 23)• Again, we will know the Lord on a deeper, intimate level. (verse 34)

How Does God Resurrect Us?

The first way God brings us to life after experiencing a valley of the shadow of death in our lives is by giving us a roadmap for our future based on His promises.

When we take this roadmap to heart and start trusting it, we begin to heal and develop positive expectations for the future. When we let these specific promises speak into our present circumstances, we can start living with the expectancy for God to move and fulfill His promises.

The second way God breathes life into our shattered souls is by resurrecting our joy and hope. Joy is the pulse of life. The Holy Spirit hovers over and fills the voids in our souls with fresh joy. This is not a superficial, fleeting joy, but the powerful current of God's love and sovereignty. He draws our attention and opens our eyes to see and behold our eternal, living hope.

This enables us to live in the present and what is happening now. We can find the strength to let go of the past and embrace the new life and all the new things God does in the present moment. And by doing so, we heal.

And we change.

When we focus on the present day, and on God's constant and loving presence, we are ready to receive our daily resurrections because "this is the day which the Lord has brought about; we will rejoice and be glad in it" (Psalm 118:24, AMPC).

Resurrection Is a Transformation

Our healing from trauma and loss and the daily renewal of hope and joy are no small miracles. However, the biggest miracle of the resurrection is that God doesn't just bring dead things to life. No, He transforms them in the process, giving them new nature and characteristics.

The resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ is a powerful example of this. His resurrected body has a completely different nature than His fleshly body. It went through a powerful metamorphosis. Jesus' body was transformed into a heavenly, immortal body with which He could stand on the right side of God.

This is what we are looking for at our final resurrection, too. We are longing for our eternal and final transformation.

Mortal into immortal. Death into life. Sorrow into joy. Weakness into glory.

In God's perfect timing, He will redeem all our deaths and the ultimate death, and shape something new and beautiful from the dust. Till then, we will again experience joy, comfort, satisfaction, blessings, and the most precious thing—a deeper and intimate knowledge of the Lord.

Till then, let's count our daily resurrections.

Image: Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights, oil on oak panels. Museo del Prado, Madrid.

Hadassah Treu is an award-winning author of "DRAW NEAR: How Painful Experiences Become the Birthplace of Blessings," poet, speaker, and motivator, author of 2 poetry books, and co-author of 13 devotional and poetry anthologies. She loves encouraging people to draw near to God in the dark valleys of life. She has been featured in The Upper Room, (In)Courage, Proverbs 31 Ministries, Today's Christian Living, and others. Connect with her at onthewaybg.com, and on social media @onthewaybg and @hadassahtreu.