Two days too late?

Funny how we can be so familiar with certain parts of Scripture and then suddenly see something we never saw before. Very alive is the Word and the Spirit!

So, Jesus had just told Mary and Martha that their brother Lazarus' sickness "is not unto death, but for the glory of the God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it" (Jn. 11:4). Two days later Lazarus was dead. We know the rest of th

e story. This was not the end of it. But Mary and Martha couldn't see the future any more than we can.

Every believer has heard something from the Lord. Promises that have yet to be seen and even seem, at times, out of the realm of possibility. We have little idea if the fulfillment of a promise will be this side of eternity, unless specified for us in Scripture, or "in the resurrection at the last day," as Martha assumed. But we can know that God will glorify Himself through it all, along the way. The heart of it is this, speaking to myself, "What do I want more-the 'sickness' to be gone, or that through it God is glorified?"

It takes a very big work in my heart to truely desire that God be glorified through "sickness" more than I desire for what seems wrong to be made right; what is dead to be made alive; what is unresolved to be resolved.

What are some indications that my heart is not there? There are many, most of which I am sure I share with Mary and Martha. But perhaps the most revealing is a heart that says, "Lord, it's two days too late. If You had been...then this would not have been." Both sisters said it. I may plead with God for the sickness, the wrongness, the deadness, the unresolved to be raised and righted before it's too late...but have I pled for His glory?

Plead for His glory!

written by: Carolyn Roehrig