If you had been here
On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days … and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home. “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. – John 11:17-21
Sometimes we do like Martha; we blame God for not having arrived in time. When we have difficult situations we think we know what God is supposed to do to solve our problem.
God always knows what is best for us. In the case of Martha she thought the solution was for Jesus to heal his brother when he was sick. It seems logical, but logic is not always in accordance with the plans and the will of God. The plan of Martha was the miracle of healing, but in the plans of Jesus was a larger sample of the power of God through the resurrection of her brother.
If Jesus had acted according to Marta’s plans there had been a miracle, but all of us would have missed seeing the glory of God manifested by raising Lazarus from the death after four days.
Often, God’s intervention does not happen the way we expected, but even if we don’t understand we can trust that God’s plan for our lives will always be better than ours.
We might not receive the miracle we hoped for, but if we stand firm in the faith we will receive the greatest miracle of all: eternal life. Even Lazarus died again, which eventually will happen to all of us, but our final day in this world will only mean the greater glory of living forever in the presence of our God.
If you feel disappointed because you did not receive what you expected, I invite you to make yours the words of the psalmist: “Why are you downcast, O my soul, Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God” (Psalm 43:5).
Comments
If you had been here — No Comments
HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>