7-11-22<\/p>\n
At times all believers wonder \u2013 no differently than do secular folk \u2013 Why do the \u201cgood\u201d suffer? Indeed, why do sinners prosper? Where is God? Why is it necessary to go through trials at all? Why did my spouse die? How can I survive this economy? Can a blessing please come my way?<\/p>\n
God answers prayer, yes; but why is the answer so often No? Why does God seem to delay His answers\u2026 or seem seldom to answer a specific pleading?<\/p>\n
\u2026 Why does an all-powerful God, who loves us so much \u2013 and which we hardly doubt \u2013 where is He when we cry? Why must we suffer anguish? We feel we are not selfish, but why, God, are You so often late??? Have you cried out with such questions?<\/p>\n
I have friends who have been in that place lately, and so have I. Our souls cry out, even as we know the truths, and we know His word: we don\u2019t need Bible college to know that He is sovereign. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, as Hebrews Chapter 11 states. \u201cTrust and Obey,\u201d the old Gospel song assures us. There are hundreds of Bible promises.\u00a0\u201cFather knows best!\u201d Even that has spiritual application!<\/p>\n
But yet we hurt. And wait. And listen. And, sometimes, our spiritual shopping-list seems to have been ignored.<\/p>\n
Among many clues to these questions in the Bible, I think today of Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha, and a special friend, we read, of Jesus. Lazarus was sick\u2026 Jesus was sent for to pray healing over him\u2026 Jesus was \u201clate,\u201d arriving four days after his friend died and was entombed. Why, why, cried the women and many other followers, Why were you late, Jesus?<\/p>\n
Jesus wept (the shortest verse in Scripture), we are told. He prayed to His Father that His divinity might be manifest in that moment, to assert (once again) to witnesses that He was indeed sent by God. He instructed mourners that the stone over the tomb\u2019s entrance be rolled away\u2026 despite protestations that there would be ugly putrefaction from a four-day-old dead body.<\/p>\n
But Lazarus walked out. He was whole and healed.<\/p>\n
Jesus directed that the remaining burial cloths be removed. The Lord was, we see, not the only example of a resurrection recorded in Scripture\u2026 and neither the last. (Many are to come!)<\/p>\n
The lessons are many. First, regarding timely prayer requests: Was Jesus \u201cfour days late\u201d\u2026 or was He, rather, precisely on time? I urge you to watch the short music video below, enacting the scene but sharing the Truth better than I am doing.<\/em><\/p>\n And we ought to practice humility. Our agenda is not God\u2019s; our urgency is not His. My comment about a shopping-list is too often how we approach the Lord. That is not communication as God desires.<\/p>\n Also there is the point about God\u2019s sovereignty. Jesus\u2019 timing was perfect\u2026 but we need to learn that Jesus did not raise everybody from the dead. He might have healed everyone He met, but the Bible does not claim that. He loves us, but His ways are not our ways.<\/em><\/p>\n Do you begin to see the \u201cproblem\u201d we sometimes have with prayer? The problems can be with our approach, not His hearing. The ultimate lesson is to have faith. \u201cBe still and know that I am God,\u201d He tells us.<\/p>\n I was persuaded, years ago, to have an all-in belief in Divine Healing, close to the \u201cname it and claim it\u201d theology we hear discussed. Then one day I realized that an evangelist I fervently followed\u2026 wore glasses. And his wife talked about sharing Jesus… during her physical therapy sessions. Hmmm.<\/p>\n My late wife underwent heart and kidney transplants despite praying that she be supernaturally healed instead. A year later she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, was \u201cprayed over\u201d but underwent surgery, after which the doctors \u201ccouldn\u2019t explain it,\u201d but there were no traces of cancer cells.<\/p>\n God is sovereign. Why do we always need reminders?<\/p>\n I take away one more lesson from Lazarus. He was from Bethany, but he is also a Metaphor, if you will forgive me. Lazarus was dead\u2026 and before Jesus shows up in our lives, we too are dead in our sins.<\/p>\n And others might pray for us\u2026 but only a personal encounter with the Savior will bless us.<\/p>\n Also: instead of thinking of yourself as a Mary or Martha or an onlooker\u2026 imagine yourself as Lazarus. He was not only dead by all the ways they could measure. But, remember Jesus ordered that the bandages and burial cloths be removed? Let us think about that: we often, and in many ways, are encumbered, and bound, by our sins. Burial cloths, in a way of thinking, restraining us.<\/p>\n Death accompanies such restraints \u2013 sins \u2013 on our lives. Jesus looses and frees us from them. And like Lazarus, we may be born again.<\/p>\n + + +<\/p>\n