John 14:1-3 (Right before His crucifixion, Jesus had just told His disciples, yet again, that He would not be doing, nor would He be, what they were expecting, that He would not be the earthly messiah they thought He would be. While they thought they had been helping Jesus for the last three years of His ministry to step into His role in an earthly kingdom, He told them He had other purposes to fulfill, and now He comforts them and us with these words.) Do not let your hearts be troubled. (Even when it appears that things are not working out the way we had hoped or even the way we had fervently prayed, when Jesus isn't what we had expected Him to be or expected Him to do, we have a choice in the way we respond to these hardships. We can choose to doubt Him, to fear, or we can choose to trust Him.) You believe in God; believe also in Me. (The antidote to troubled hearts and fears is to focus our trust in the One Who can be trusted above all others. Because Jesus comes from His Father Who provided for the plan of salvation long before time began and because Jesus willingly laid down His life for our redemption, we can trust Him and lean on Him during hardships.) My Father's house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you I am going there to prepare a place for you? (Jesus and His Father have prepared safe havens for us and have designed purposes and a destiny for us to fulfill. Jesus always goes before us to places He has prepared, and we know that as we travel to those places He will already be there.) And if I go and prepare a place for you, (Even when we feel He is distant and far away, He always reveals to us His way of salvation and continues making provisions for us of which we are not yet aware.) I will come back and take you to be with Me that you also may be where I am. (He makes sure that we are with Him, and He makes sure we walk where He wants us to be.) You know the way to the place where I am going. (As we listen to Him, we know the way to Him today because Heis the Way, because He lives in us and communicates to us His designs and purposes and directions through His Word and through the still, small Voice of His Holy Spirit.)
