When Love Delays
“Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.”
John 11:5-6
John makes something painfully clear. Jesus loved them. He loved Lazarus. He loved Mary. He loved Martha. And because He loved them…He stayed.
That sentence disrupts our assumptions about love. We tend to believe love removes suffering as quickly as possible. If you love someone, you fix it. If you care, you intervene. If you have power, you use it immediately. Yet here we see Jesus doing the opposite of what we expect.
He loves them, so He delays. Lazarus suffers. Mary and Martha grieve. And Jesus allows it.
This passage forces us to wrestle with a hard truth. Love does not always mitigate suffering. Sometimes love allows it. We do not parent by removing every discomfort from our children’s lives. If we did, they would grow up fragile, unable to endure hardship. In the same way, God does not remove every trial from ours. He is not hardened toward our pain. He does not enjoy it. But He knows what we often forget. Strength and endurance are not formed in comfort. They are formed in difficulty.
When things get hard and we know He could stop it, that is when the real question surfaces. Is God loving? John answers that before we can even ask it. Jesus loved them. The delay was not indifference. The delay was purposeful.
If you are in a season where heaven feels quiet and relief feels late, do not confuse delay with absence. Do not confuse silence with apathy. The same Jesus who waited is the Jesus who wept. The same Jesus who allowed suffering is the Jesus who raised the dead.
He is equipping you to last.
People who spend their lives avoiding suffering rarely endure in the faith. But those who learn to trust Him in it develop roots. They develop depth. They develop a faith that is not fragile.
Maybe today you are in the two day delay. Maybe you are praying and nothing is moving. Maybe the illness has not lifted. Maybe the grief has not eased.
Hear this clearly. His love has not changed. His affection has not diminished. His timing is not careless.
He is forming something in you that comfort never could.
And when the stone finally rolls away, you will see that love was there the whole time.
John 11:5-6
John makes something painfully clear. Jesus loved them. He loved Lazarus. He loved Mary. He loved Martha. And because He loved them…He stayed.
That sentence disrupts our assumptions about love. We tend to believe love removes suffering as quickly as possible. If you love someone, you fix it. If you care, you intervene. If you have power, you use it immediately. Yet here we see Jesus doing the opposite of what we expect.
He loves them, so He delays. Lazarus suffers. Mary and Martha grieve. And Jesus allows it.
This passage forces us to wrestle with a hard truth. Love does not always mitigate suffering. Sometimes love allows it. We do not parent by removing every discomfort from our children’s lives. If we did, they would grow up fragile, unable to endure hardship. In the same way, God does not remove every trial from ours. He is not hardened toward our pain. He does not enjoy it. But He knows what we often forget. Strength and endurance are not formed in comfort. They are formed in difficulty.
When things get hard and we know He could stop it, that is when the real question surfaces. Is God loving? John answers that before we can even ask it. Jesus loved them. The delay was not indifference. The delay was purposeful.
If you are in a season where heaven feels quiet and relief feels late, do not confuse delay with absence. Do not confuse silence with apathy. The same Jesus who waited is the Jesus who wept. The same Jesus who allowed suffering is the Jesus who raised the dead.
He is equipping you to last.
People who spend their lives avoiding suffering rarely endure in the faith. But those who learn to trust Him in it develop roots. They develop depth. They develop a faith that is not fragile.
Maybe today you are in the two day delay. Maybe you are praying and nothing is moving. Maybe the illness has not lifted. Maybe the grief has not eased.
Hear this clearly. His love has not changed. His affection has not diminished. His timing is not careless.
He is forming something in you that comfort never could.
And when the stone finally rolls away, you will see that love was there the whole time.
Posted in The Word Made Flesh
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