When Jesus Really Loves Us, Sometimes He Waits
When Jesus really loves us, sometimes He waits
Remember the story of Lazarus? You’ll find it in John, chapter 11. Lazarus was a “dear friend” of Jesus. Lazarus’ sisters, Mary and Martha, were Jesus’ friends and disciples as well. He loved each of them so much.
But…one wonders: if He loved them so much why did He wait so long to respond to their prayer (which came to Him through the intercession of mutual friends) when Lazarus was sick? It appears that it is because He loved them so much that He did not go immediately to Bethany but “stayed right there in the place where He was for two more days."
As this story plays out, it becomes evident that in His love for them He waited to help them because He had planned something better for them than they were even asking for.
He knew that Lazarus’ sickness would not “terminate in death." This did not mean Lazarus wouldn’t die; it meant he wouldn't stay dead. Jesus knew things that the people praying did not know. This is why Jesus could say “I'm actually glad he died, for your sakes, so that you will believe…"
“Sometimes Jesus doesn’t do what we want Him to do when we want Him to do it…because He loves us so much.”
Sometimes when we are sad and desperate and angry about some negative thing in our lives, He is actually glad, because He sees into our futures and knows what is really best for us. And sometimes this means that we experience bad things in this broken world. But He redeems bad things and makes good things if we believe in Him. He smiles and says… “I love you so much I'm not going to answer your lesser prayers. Hang in there; I've got something better for you. Just trust me."
Trusting Jesus is always the most important thing.
Jesus asked Martha “do you believe?” (John 11:17 – 27)
To believe in someone is more than just believing that they exist. It's about trusting that they are who they say they are, and will do what they say they will do. We believe into them. When we trust in Jesus, it gives him pleasure. He sets up situations where the bottom line is, “Do you believe in me?”
Great leaders are always issuing invitations to a great adventure, I believe, but people often don’t know that’s what they want. They may have limited dreams, or dreams that are only about themselves, if they have any dreams at all. Hospitable leaders must help people uncover their dreams, encourage their dreams, and provoke them to dream in line with God’s good dreams for this broken world.
When you look at a negative situation in your life, when you look at a sealed-up tomb and know the thing you hoped would be taken care of is dead and stinking inside…are you able to look at that through the eyes of trust in God? Or do you look at it as if it’s a hopeless situation, without factoring in God’s ability to bring something better out of that than what you initially hoped for.
“As followers of Jesus, we cannot default to the negative. We are called ‘believers’ for a reason.”
This doesn't mean we ignore the difficult or even tragic events in our lives. It just means that we look at them through the eyes of trust. We default to faith. We look at a sealed-up tomb and through our tears we know that somehow even this will have a happy ending.
Hospitable leaders create environments where people and dreams flourish.
I like the way Jesus meets Mary and Martha as they each respond to a terrible situation in line with their own unique personalities. He accepts them in their mixture of grief and anger and complaint. In fact, their complaints are in their own way full of faith; they basically said, “we know you could've kept this from happening."
“Jesus meets each of us in all of our imperfect humanity. And He accepts whatever faith we are able to tap into during difficult moments in our lives.”
Jesus feels what we feel. He enters our suffering.
But He doesn't just feel our pain—He does something about it.
He won't just cry with you; He will stand with you and look at some stinking thing you are facing in your life and shout “come out of there!"
God will take your pain and redeem it. He will give you a better story than you even knew you needed.
Have you seen a dream die only to be resurrected into something better than you imagined? I’d love to hear about it. Drop a comment and share your story.
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