O Lord, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth! Your glory is higher than the heavens.

. . .

When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers — the moon and the stars you set in place — what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them?
(Psalm 8:1, 3-4 NLT)

Has it been a while since you stared at the heavens in speechless amazement?

Has it been a while since you realized God's divinity and your carnality?

If it has, then you need to know something. He is still there. He hasn't left. Under all those papers and books and reports and years. In the midst of all those voices and faces and memories and pictures, he is still there.

Do yourself a favor. Stand before him again. Or, better, allow him to stand before you. Go into your upper room and wait. Wait until he comes. And when he appears, don't leave. Run your fingers over his feet. Place your hand in the pierced side. And look into those eyes. Those same eyes that melted the gates of hell and sent the demons scurrying and Satan running. Look at them as they look at you. You'll never be the same.

The hand that reaches out to comfort you is a pierced one.
A man is never the same after he simultaneously sees his utter despair and Christ's unbending grace. To see the despair without grace is suicidal. To see the grace without the despair is upper room futility. But to see them both is conversion.

Come meet the God of encouragement. He loves you. He never gives up on you, especially when life is hard, because he has been there. The hand that reaches out to comfort you is a pierced one.

I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit (Romans 15:13 NLT).