Why I love studying John 11 

Don’t we all have moments when we feel we have given God a lot and thus expect Him to drop everything and come running when we call?

Mary Magdalene had washed Jesus’ feet with perfume and wiped them with her hair. Yet, when her brother Lazarus took ill and she sent for Jesus, He took His sweet time going to Bethany. Why? Because of John 11:4.“When Jesus heard that, He said, ‘This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it’.”

He knew that only those He loved so much and those who loved Him in turn could allow for God to glorify Himself through them. God trusts you enough not to backslide just because He has taken His sweet time.

He trusts you to sail through this long enough until He gets to you…while He attends to those in ‘the place where he was’, whose faith possibly would not have withstood what they were going through.

Look at John 11:5-6!

“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.”

He loved them……therefore, He stayed away two more days! He took His sweet time getting to their miracle, because He loved them. Yet we often think, when Jesus is taking His time answering our cries and prayers, it means He has abandoned us and does not love us anymore.

I can only imagine Mary and Martha’s desperation and disappointment in that moment; when they counted on their dear friend Jesus’ availability so much, only for Him to trust them to wait on Him longer than others were capable to. Now, imagine what the Jews were telling the sisters in verse 19!

“See? We told you that man is not for you but you never listen. Where is Jesus when you need Him most?” I imagine the mocking voices.

Then He actually turned up! And it did not matter that Lazarus had been dead four days by then, Jesus turned up and rose him from the dead. What can silence the naysayers more? What can restore one’s faith more?

If you are in that place, watching your own Lazarus breathing his/its/her last while the Lord seems silent and less concerned, hang in there; He is actually on the way.

malita@observer.ug