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I believe God is all-powerful and everything Jesus does and says and allows to transpire is for our good and for His glory.
Jesus takes everyone in the John 11 story deep into the dark grave of pain and suffering. He doesn’t stop a death of a dearly loved friend, and He doesn’t spare those He loves days of agonizing grief and suffering. He could have prevented this entire ordeal, yet He allows it to unfold.
Why? John shared the purpose clearly in verses 4 and 14: For our faith and for His glory.
Jesus hates death in this passage, and He hates watching those He loves suffer. I spent a bit of time considering exactly why Jesus cried. He knew what would happen moments later. You’d think He’d be excited to exercise His power over death and to see His friend.
But He paused and grieved with Mary.
Jesus is obviously complex and there is no way to know all that He was feeling in those moments. But one thing He must have felt was compassion for all that Mary and Martha and all the other humans around Him, whom He deeply loved, couldn’t yet see or understand.
In 1 Corinthians 2:9, Paul stated, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him...” (ESV). However, Jesus’ eyes, ears, heart, and imagination have seen.
He knew all that God had prepared, yet He was not going to reveal it on that day. While He might temporarily suspend this day’s pain and grief, suffering and pain remain a part of the human equation. He was determined to give them the one thing that could transport them to all that was waiting for them: Faith.
Is it conceivable that God may allow temporary suffering to expand our faith?
Absolutely. Our faith, tried and tested, will lead us to our eternal home where pain and suffering will never touch us again.
But what if the very thing that God is allowing for our good, our faith, our hope, our perseverance, we keep pushing away and avoiding?
We can either move into the suffering within us and around us or we can try to avoid it. But if we choose avoidance, not only will we miss the hard parts but we will miss the best parts, too.
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About this Plan
Too many of us walk through life feeling as if we don't measure up. We always seem to thirst for more. We think if we could only work harder or be better, we could be enough. But the truth is, we will never be enough. And thankfully, we don't have to be. In Proven, Jennie Allen walks through the Book of John to demonstrate how only Jesus is enough.
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