Are you going through a brilliant refining process at the very same time you expected a blessing?
There are just a handful of times where it is written “Jesus loved so and so,” but it is written, regarding one family: “Jesus loved Martha, her sister and Lazarus.” (John 11:6) When Jesus heard his friend was sick and that He needed to hurry and help him… John 11:6 says, ”He abode TWO DAYS STILL in the same place where He was.” Notice the sacred writer added “still.” No doubt the person who delivered the urgent telegram watched and waited and waited and returned and gave the report. “Did you give Him the message?” “He did what? He set up another day of meetings?”
This seeming indifference to their pain fed directly into the mouth of the accuser who whispered to the sisters, “If Jesus loved any of you, he would have come here sooner.” Therefore Martha said verbatim, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” In other words—”If You loved him or loved us why did You let this happen? It didn’t have to be this way.”
Welcome to the wilderness. The place where you feel overlooked and forgotten. What you once longed for is so delayed or denied, you wrestle with thoughts you never had before. You question the very love of God for you. Is this so strange? This is what Mary and Martha wrestled with.
But what was the truth? So far from Lazarus being overlooked or unloved, the thing God did next was greater than the thing they had been praying for! You wanted healing? Well Jesus healed everyone who came to Him….nothing unique about that in His meetings. But this particular healing would be so dramatic, it was necessary for everyone to know just how far gone the patient was. This thing will glorify God.
The Prophet John was called “to prepare a people” to be a highway for the coming of the Lord. Where is the highway formed? In the desert! Where is the desert? It is in the barren, untamed and uncultivated territory…in people.
It is “heart” stuff at a level we have not seen. Hence….”the spirit and power of Elijah” comes to “turn the HEART of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just.” (Luke 1:17) What is the wisdom of the just? A new heart-level obedience to what pleases the Father.
You may enter what seems like a wilderness season, but it is not what you think. It’s all about making you ready for something huge. Maybe there are things that need to happen IN YOUR LIFE to prepare you for what God wants to happen THROUGH YOUR life. Like Moses in the desert or Jesus in Nazareth, God often hides us away in the interest of something greater.
He draws us away from the things we are doing, in order to lead us into the better thing. The stuff He wants to do through us. Dare I say He even risks disappointing us in the things we wanted Him to do, so that He could shape us to do something greater for Him. Or in Lazarus' case, we become the sign that causes others to see the wonders of the Lord.
Your reversal is a set-up to reveal His glory!
God’s timing is always perfect! Thank you for this post. I needed this reminder today. Have been pleading with my Lord! How long? I am at a new stage of grief in my journey after being betrayed throughout a 43 yr marriage , abandoned, divorced , while battling stage IV coancer.
I have felt like I have moved from one wilderness to another. I have not lost hope, not yet! For His Glory!!
Lance, you’re so prophetic: “Dare I say He even risks disappointing us in the things we wanted Him to do, so that He could shape us to do something greater for Him.”
It’s interesting that even though I’ve been going through many intense situations for a while now, I have just about gotten to the point where I don’t care what battles may come. Threats and troubles bother me less than ever before, as if I just can’t be bothered to notice them. I have a sense of joy that has been developing over this whole process. Not happiness or emotional feelings or anything like that, but profound bright hope and expectation that these trials are indeed temporary, like scribbles in the sand on the seashore that will soon be wiped away by tides of God’s glory.
God brought me to a place of being crushed. Crushed by circumstance, crushed by family and I wouldn’t trade it for anything… In the midst of feeling sorry for myself and my heart in so much pain, I didn’t know what to do, He showed me I had to decide. Decide was I going to wallow or follow. I decided to follow. I wept, I confessed, I hurt, I cried, but I chose Him. Jesus. I asked Him to teach me what He wanted me to learn. He taught me about the olive press and the wine press. I was reminded of the good Samaritan who took the wounded man from the side of the road and took care of him, The scripture [Luke 10:30-35] says he poured the oil and the wine into the man’s wounds and bound them up. In them was healing. The pain did not go immediately away, but I learned that I have not suffered for my Lord as he suffered for me. It was a wilderness worth going through. The crushing caused my heart to change. there is anointing in the oil and redemption in the wine of Jesus’ blood.
I concur with the last comment, that you are definitely prophetic! I love the way you recognize the appropriate Bible story, or Scripture for our current day issues, or ministries. I thought I was pretty tuned in to scriptural applications, but especially when it comes to my own life, I often miss it! Your encouragement was spot on, but I can say like the previous commenter that I pretty much expect the wait and the continual disappointments. I think it definitely helped, my sharing with you my sufferings, but I’m ok. I’m still “in the wilderness” no doubt, but reading the Bible everyday, and keeping up with all the pressures and WRONGS in our world today, seem to go along with my own frustrations and expectations for something to change! Listening especially to a lot of Christian commenting on the corruption of American politics, and the sense that something BIG is coming, as the outbreak of the storm, keeps me sane! I hope you know what I mean. I just feel in sync! We have to go through the struggle, and it is SO comforting that God is our Commander, and will lead us ultimately to triumph! Thank you Lance. As One!