What To Do When God Feels Late
Have you ever waited for something and felt like it may never come? I remember waiting for graduation in high school, wanting to move on to the next chapter of my life. I remember waiting for Santa to come as a kid on Christmas Eve, thinking he may not show up. I remember waiting on good news from a friend or family member in the hospital. The truth is, all of these things came to pass, and God answered in the waiting. But in the midst of waiting, God can sometimes feel late- late to show up, late to answer, or late to the situation we wish He would desperately change.
There is a story in the Bible that I think resonates well with this message of waiting for God to show up. That story is the one of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. There are many themes throughout this passage in Scripture, but I want to focus on one them I felt God leading me to, and that is What To Do When God Feels Late.
There is one specific story I was reading the other day that caught my attention, and that is the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead (spoiler alert!). Here is some context to the story- Jesus retreated to where John the Baptist was baptizing across the Jordan (John 10:40). When he heard Lazarus was sick, He actually stayed there two more days. By the time Jesus arrived in Bethany, Lazarus had been in the tomb already for four days.
John 11:17-19 says this, When Jesus arrived at Bethany, he was told that Lazarus had already been in his grave for four days. Bethany was only a few miles down the road from Jerusalem, and many of the people had come to console Martha and Mary in their loss. When Martha got word that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him. But Mary stayed in the house. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask” (NLT).
Jesus then tells Mary, “Your brother will rise again.”
“Yes,” Martha said, “he will rise when everyone else rises, at the last day.” Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die. Do you believe this, Martha?”
“Yes, Lord,” she told him. “I have always believed you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who has come into the world from God” (John 11:23-27, NLT). This revelation Martha makes is crucial to not only this story, but to the context of Scripture as a whole. Martha is declaring that Jesus is the Messiah, the long awaited Savior the Jews and the world has been waiting for. Martha then calls Mary, her sister, who was mourning with the other Jews over Lazarus’s death. She says to Mary, “The Teacher is here and wants to see you.” So Mary immediately went to him.
Jesus had stayed outside the village, at the place where Martha met him. When the people who were at the house consoling Mary saw her leave so hastily, they assumed she was going to Lazarus’s grave to weep. So they followed her there. When Mary arrived and saw Jesus, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died” (John 11:28-32, NLT). Mary fully believed in Jesus’ capability to heal Lazarus. Mary clearly knew that Jesus could have prevented Lazarus’s death. But the story actually reveals something deeper: neither Mary or Martha seemed to understand what Jesus would do next. They believed He could have saved Lazarus from dying, not that He’d call Lazarus out of the grave.
“When Jesus saw her weeping and saw the other people wailing with her, a deep anger welled up within him, and he was deeply troubled. “Where have you put him?” he asked them.
They told him, “Lord, come and see.” Then Jesus wept. The people who were standing nearby said, “See how much he loved him!” But some said, “This man healed a blind man. Couldn’t he have kept Lazarus from dying?”
Jesus was still angry as he arrived at the tomb, a cave with a stone rolled across its entrance. “Roll the stone aside,” Jesus told them.
But Martha, the dead man’s sister, protested, “Lord, he has been dead for four days. The smell will be terrible.” (John 11:40-42, NLT).
What’s interesting is that Martha previous declared to Jesus that He was the Messiah, the Son of God. If Martha believed that, why was she protesting Jesus' request? She knew Jesus was the Messiah. She knew He had the power to do anything. But when Jesus told her to roll the stone away, the reality of the situation seemed to outweigh the miracle Jesus could perform.
Jesus replies to Martha, “Didn’t I tell you that you would see God’s glory if you believe?” So they rolled the stone aside. Then Jesus looked up to heaven and said, “Father, thank you for hearing me. You always hear me, but I said it out loud for the sake of all these people standing here, so that they will believe you sent me.” Then Jesus shouted, “Lazarus, come out!” And the dead man came out, his hands and feet bound in grave clothes, his face wrapped in a head cloth. Jesus told them, “Unwrap him and let him go!” (John 11:40-44).
Now that we know the whole story, we have to ask ourselves a few questions:
Why did Jesus wait four days to raise Lazarus from the dead, when He could have done it the first moment his sisters asked him?
Why did Jesus weep?
What do we do when God feels late in our own story?
So, why did Jesus wait for days to raise Lazarus from the dead? John intentionally emphasizes this detail to make it clear that Lazarus was truly, utterly dead. There could be no ambiguity amongst the Jewish people or to us reading the story of what Jesus was about to do and the miracle that would take place.
The next question we have to answer is why did Jesus weep? John doesn’t give us an explicit explanation to this. But he does note that Jesus saw Mary and the people weeping over Lazarus’s death. He was deeply moved by their grief. I’d even imagine that He could have possibly been angry over the fact of death as well, that there was brokenness and sin in the world. Jesus sat in the pain with His people before doing a mighty act of God. I think we can take something from this, too. Maybe you’re currently waiting for God to change your own situation. He knows that you’re sad, that you’re upset, and that you might be questioning Him. Or maybe you know someone else waiting on God, and you don’t know how to journey with them in the waiting. Remember that Jesus doesn’t ask us to move past our pain, but to sit with Him in our grief.
Now, for the final question. What do we do when God feels late in our own story?
The truth is, we all have different responses to the pain we feel when it seems like God is late. Some of us cry in agony, others of us cry silently, or some of us wait anxiously in hope. Maybe what you’ve been waiting on has taken more than four days, and you wish Jesus would come in four days, because that would mean He’d answer.
I believe the way we wait reveals where our faith is placed. Like Martha, we can meet Jesus halfway in our pain. Martha went to meet Jesus in the middle of her pain and disappointment of Jesus seemingly being late. She didn’t hide her hurt from Jesus or not ask Jesus an important question in her mind- “Lord, where were you?” But even in her confusion, Martha still declared Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. Sometimes, all we can do in the waiting is declare the truth over our situation, even when our circumstances tell us otherwise. Just like Martha, we have to declare who Jesus is in the midst of our situation, despite the circumstance.
When God feels late, remind yourself that His delay doesn’t mean He’s absent. Isaiah 64:4-5 declares this truth about our God:
“For since the world began,
no ear has heard
and no eye has seen a God like you,
who works for those who wait for him!
You welcome those who gladly do good,
who follow godly ways” (NLT).
No matter what your circumstance is, we can trust God is working all things together for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28), even when we can’t see what the good will look like just yet.
