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WAITING ON THE LORD: A Study of Martha, Mary and Lazarus



Are you waiting on the Lord for something? Have you been waiting a long time? Have you just about given up hope? Don’t. God’s delays are always designed and productive. He is doing something that He couldn’t do without the delay. It’s because He loves you that He delays...He wants to do something more in your life than what you can see. I have been waiting on the Lord for something major in my life for a long, long time. It has been a long, and at times, agonizing journey. Some days feel very dark. The longer I wait, the more I begin to question if I’ve really heard from Him. One particular day not too long ago, I woke up in discouragement. It was one of those days of questioning. I asked the Lord to just speak to me in a way that I would know that it was Him. I opened my Bible to John 11 which is the passage of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. My eyes went immediately to a note I had written in the margin, “God has told me what to do —I need to walk in the light He has given me.” I was immediately encouraged and renewed, not only from my note, but just reading this whole passage. There is so much to gain from the study of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead.

John 11:1- 6: “Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha. It was that Mary who anointed the Lord with fragrant oil and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. Therefore the sisters sent to him, saying, ‘Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick.’ 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.’ 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.” (Emphasis mine.)

What? Because Jesus loved them He stayed where He was for two more days? Why didn’t He get to them as soon as He could? Isn’t that what was best? Of course, in our limited knowledge and understanding, we want it to happen now. But God has a bigger, better plan.

More often than not we want things that would really be good, not knowing that He has something even better. We would sacrifice the excellent for the good...

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