Real Hope: Jesus the UnexpectedSample

The Waiting

One of the greatest challenges of trusting God is accepting those times in life where things just feel so unknown. We believe God has a plan for us, but we don’t quite know what it is. We believe He can heal, but we don’t know what that will look like. There’s no blanket rule for how God is working through the uncertain moments of our lives, but we do know He is working, and He does have a plan.

In John 11, Lazarus’ friends and family were grieving his sickness and subsequent death. There’s no doubt they had prayed for God’s intervention earlier in his illness – in fact Lazarus’ sisters had sent word to Jesus that ‘the one you love is sick’.

But He didn’t show up. Jesus stayed where He was for two more days, with zero sense of hurry.

You can only imagine how infuriating that would’ve felt knowing Jesus’ lack of urgency, and yet, as we see in John 11, Jesus chose to wait because it was going to lead to an even greater act of love, and an even greater display of His miraculous power.

It’s really easy to be frustrated when we don’t see God working as we’d expect in our circumstances and for our faith to waiver, but John 11 shows us that God sees our situation not just within the present moment, but as part of a bigger picture. He sees how it can best be a display of His goodness and love for us. In the waiting, may our prayer be that we see as He sees.

Written by LAURA BENNETT