MIDWEEK MEDITATION

When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. “Where have you laid him?” he asked.

“Come and see, Lord,” they replied.

Jesus wept.

Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”

But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

John 11:32-37

Does God see? Does God care? Can God do something?

When the losses in our life begin to stack up around us, when we find ourselves overwhelmed and broken, we are faced with a question: how can a good God allow bad things to happen?  In these moments we experience doubt and confusion. If only God would have done something…

Jesus could have stopped Lazarus from dying. He didn’t. Jesus was operating on a different level, a level in which the glory of God is displayed on a timeline we can’t comprehend. It was part of God’s purpose and will that Lazarus would die and then be resurrected so that many would believe and experience life. But divine mystery seems a cold comfort when you’re looking at a tomb.
 
Jesus doesn’t rebuke Mary for her pained outburst, nor does He justify His grand plan to her. Instead, He weeps. The one who is about to raise Lazarus from the dead, the one who knows the Father’s will intimately, weeps.

Jesus is sovereign but He isn’t cold. He cares for the trials in our lives even as He is providential over them. He doesn’t answer the question why; instead, He points us to the who. 

So often we have no idea why God allows painful things to come into our lives. But when we remember who God is, His character, and His love for us, we can trust Him even in the loss until we see His resurrection in our lives.  

God sees. God cares. God will do something. 

God, give me grace to believe that You are sovereign over my life and present with me when it feels like death. I believe that You are the resurrection and the life.