"Where is Jesus? Where is Jesus? The messenger should have arrived by now." They must have been agonizing, pacing, wondering. Their brother was dying. And Jesus—their friend, the miracle worker—was nowhere to be found.
Scripture Focus: John 11:5-6: "Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when He heard that he was sick, He then stayed two days longer in the place where He was."
Read that again. Verse 5: Jesus loved them. Verse 6: So... He stayed.
If you were writing this story, verse 6 would say something like, "So because of His great love, Jesus dropped everything He was doing, saddled the donkey, and made haste to Bethany." But that's not what happened. The God of the Bible is so different than the God of your expectation.
It says "He loved them...and so"—that's a purpose word, a purpose clause—"so, because He loved them, He waited two days."
How are we to understand that His love for this family was the cause of His delay? If God loves them, why wait? Why not respond immediately? Furthermore, if God loves them, why let Lazarus get sick in the first place? Why not heal him with a word from a distance like He'd done before?
Here's the reality: God's delays are never the product of coldness, indifference, or preoccupation on the part of God. It's not because He's too busy. It's not because He's cold. We see here—He's a lover of His people. When God delays, it's always a delay of love (Boice).
In the midst of our waiting, we must learn to interpret circumstances by the love of Christ and not Christ's love by our circumstances. That's a word for you this morning. We so often read the love of God through the window of how our life is unfolding. But we need to reverse the order and learn to interpret circumstances by the love of Christ.
Why does God delay? A few reasons:
First, in loving us, He gives us what we need the most. And what's your greatest need? It's to be gripped by the greatness and grandeur and glory of God. This is Moses's prayer: "Show me Your glory." This is Jesus's prayer in John 17:24—"Father, I desire that they also whom You have given Me be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory."
God makes us wait so that the glory of God might be revealed.
Second, He makes us wait to strengthen our faith. God's love for His people is not a pampering love—it's a perfecting love. God loves to change those whom He loves. Read the Psalms: "I will wait on the Lord. I will wait on the Lord. I will wait on the Lord." There's a reason David was called a man after God's own heart. God uses those seasons of waiting to refine you, to change you.
Third, He does this to deepen our affection and our love for Him, which is so often grown in the shadow of death. If God wants you to trust in Him, He puts you in a place of difficulty. If He wants you to trust Him greatly, He puts you in a place of impossibility. For when a thing is impossible, then we who are so prone to move things through by the force of our own being can say, "Lord, it has to be You. It has to be You."
And fourth, to increase our joy. The most joyful people on earth are not those who get what they want. They are those who understand that God is orchestrating everything that unfolds for His glory. And when they come to terms with that reality, there is a joy even amidst great sorrow.
Where is God making you wait right now? Can you trust that His delays are delays of love?
1. What are you waiting for right now? How are you interpreting God's delay—as evidence of His lack of care, or as evidence of His loving purpose?
2. How would your perspective change if you truly believed that God's delays are designed to give you what you need most—a deeper vision of His glory?
3. In what ways have you seen God's past delays work for your good and His glory, even when you didn't understand them at the time?
Stay dialed in