“Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when He heard that he was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was." If you were to read this without knowing how it all ends, you might be pretty confused and frankly, baffled. Lazarus is dying, and his sisters are asking for Jesus to come and heal him. At this point in His earthly ministry, Jesus had healed handfuls of people, so they knew this was something He was fully capable of. So, what does it say He did? He– wait, whaaaaat? He stayed behind two more days before He finally left to go see them. This of course, resulted in Lazarus’ death. Now, how does that make sense? How could it say that He loves them, but yet allow this tragedy to happen? Perhaps you’ve asked that question in your own life or heard others who have. The sisters were hoping that Jesus would come and heal their brother of his illness, but He didn’t. Why? Why would He let Lazarus die? Well, simply put, God had a better plan in mind. A much, much better plan. I’m sure it made absolutely zero sense to Martha and Mary at the time, I bet those two days of waiting and hoping for Jesus to come and watching their brother die was agonizing, confusing and devastating. Yet the passage makes it clear, as bizarre and perhaps even contradictory it may seem– it says that Jesus loved them. How? Well, Jesus stayed behind those two days for a reason: the greater purpose of not healing a sickness, but raising Lazarus from the dead, as we learn in the latter half of the chapter. As a result, we are told in verse 45 that many of the Jews who had witnessed this believed in Jesus, how awesome! Martha and Mary had a plan for Jesus, they had a plan on how they wanted this difficulty in their life fixed, but He had an infinitely better one. I believe this is applicable to every true Christian. Many times in our lives, God will allow some very difficult and painful things. And the truth is, He won’t always deal with these troubles, struggles and trials the way we want Him to. In fact, it’s probably very rare that our issues are resolved in the way we think they should be. We are after all, fallible, severely limited beings with a very restricted view and understanding of everything around us, whereas God sees the full picture, the ins and the outs, unknown and the unseen, the past, present and future. Who do you think has the better plan for your life? Little ole you, who doesn’t even know what the next second may hold, or the God who made and upholds the universe and everything around you and quite literally, died to save you? Yeah, well, my vote is with Him! No matter what storms and trials we may be hit with in this broken world, as Christians we can trust that God loves us, and He has an awesome, AWESOME plan for our lives. Just as we are promised in the famed Romans 8:28– “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” We may not know what tomorrow holds, but we know Who holds tomorrow.
Stay close to Jesus, my friends! He's coming back soon, and nothing matters more!
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