When I read the story of the raising of Lazarus (John 11) I am always astounded that John tells us first that Jesus truly loved Martha, Mary and their brother and begins his next sentence with: so when he heard Lazarus was sick he stayed where he was two more days. It seems completely ridiculous to say he loved them all so he didn't show up when they really needed Him. The reality is that this fits more with my life experience of God.
I have lived long enough to have had times of intense disappointment with God. There have been times in my life when nothing made sense at all and there has been one particular time when that lasted almost five years. In that time I blamed myself for turning my back on Him when I first thought I was called into ministry and believed this was my punishment. I had just come back to Him after more than a decade of walking apart and had experienced the sweetness of forgiveness and suddenly my world crashed in around me and the only explanation that worked was two-fold, I was being punished and God was incredibly cruel. My thoughts veered back and forth between the truths I knew about God and my experience of Him being dramatically different from those truths. Believe me when I say I know what it means to send a message to God and His response is, "I'll wait a while and let this get worse."
I realized in this last week with some disappointments in my life that some of that stuff still needs to be healed, there is residual doubt in my life that still processes like George on Seinfeld, believing that on the verge of "success" (however that is measured in life) God will snatch it away. I know better but that idea still nags around the edges and all it takes is a little disappointment for it to rush back into my heart and head.
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