What to do with Disappointments when Life Doesn’t Make Sense…

Scripture states in John 11
that Mary and Martha reached out to their Friend
to come quickly when their brother,
the one whom He loved, was not well.
Jesus was their only hope
but He delayed
and His friend died…
Then when He eventually arrived four days later
both sisters echoed each other’s words…
Firstly Martha went out to meet Him
and she stated that her brother would not have died
if Jesus had come when called.
Then Mary, the more relational one,
who had previously washed His feet with her hair,
fell at his feet
as she started saying the same thing:
that if He had been present
her brother would still have been alive.
Both sisters sounded so confident in Jesus
repeating one another’s words as if they had been rehearsed
because they both believed
that He could heal because He is the Healer
but He wanted to show them that He was more than a healer
and actually if we added up the disappointments
in our lives
that we didn’t sign up for
and the death of dreams,
it’s easy to ask where God has been
like Lazarus’ siblings…
but His question to them reverberates through time
as He asks us the same question
‘Do you believe that I am the Resurrection and the Life?’
and just like Jesus
raised Lazarus from the dead,
He blows breath into our dreams
-those ones we have labelled as impossibilities
and all of a sudden dry bones get up
and walk on water and through walls!
Jesus wept
because He felt for His friends
and in the difficulties we face,
can you imagine God weeping
over what is happening in your life?
Jesus weeps
with us and for us
then steps in to raise our hearts
out of the deepest depths of despair
and that very same deep despair is forgotten
as tears that tore down our faces
ripping our hearts to shreds
dry
leaving salt streaks as scars on our skin
reminding us of Who He is.
Jesus says:
‘If you believe you will see the glory of God’
and calls us to ‘Come out of the caves we create!’
even and especially the ones we hide in
giving up on life
before our quota of ‘time’ on earth
has been reached and run out.
In times of crisis,
Jesus wants to inspire and lift us up
to a new and greater level of faith;
comfort us and give us new reasons to believe
-encouraging us to look beyond the reality
we see all around us
surrounding us with sorrow and sadness
-to walk by faith and not by sight
and to look to Him.
When God’s perceived promise and blessing
on your life doesn’t work out the way you expected it to,
it’s not because He doesn’t love you
but because there are wider issues at play
that you can’t see
going on
-a bigger picture at work
and He wants to call you
to a much deeper level
of trusting the truth that He has deposited in your life
like little seeds
watering them with the Word
so that you will ‘see’ that
He is
Who He says He is
‘The Resurrection and the Life’
Who is more than able to call you forth
out of darkness into His marvellous
light and life!
Whatever you have lost
keep in mind
that Jesus is the bringer of
new life
new hope
new opportunities...
He doesn’t take His eye off us for one split-second
because we are
and always will be
His;
the apple of His eye
that He guards with the greatest care
much like we would protect our own eyes
and the only place where we should be hiding
is under the safety of the shadow of His wing
until the next time He calls us to do what He calls us to…
And that we see through what He calls us to do daily
as we ‘see’ through the many distractions of the days
we live in
and at the end of the day and the end of our lives,
may God be glorified.

—
Brenda.ps23©