Teague Bible Church

“If You Had Only Been Here”
We all get it set in our heads how this life is supposed to be. We assume a lot of things about life, but rarely ask these important questions, ” Where did that idea come from, and why did I latch onto it? Will this plan I have hold up under the rigors of this life?”
Even after we discover some ideas we have are false, we may cling to them anyway just to get along with others who expect us to acknowledge the ideas worth. We may not really believe it any longer.
One of my friends always answers the greeting, “How are you doing today?,” with the words, “Oh, just living the dream!” He does not mean it when he says it. It is meant to be a joke, but many do not see the joke. They are still in the illusion that they can carve out their own happiness in this life without coming to God.
Even some of the most dedicated followers of Christ do not fully understand that eternal life in Christ engulfs this temporary life and thereby transforms it and makes sense of it. This natural life can fly along pretty good for a while but something always comes along to foul things up. Reminds me of trying to protect a house of cards from the wind. The wind surely comes. At that point we have to decide what last and brings meaning to this temporary life.
In John 11:21-45 we have the story of the raising of Lazarus from the dead. You probably know the story. In His planned delay to the scene, Jesus gets a reaction. “Martha then said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’ ” You know the rest of it.
” ,,,Could not this man, who opened the eyes of the blind man, have kept this man also from dying?” John 11: 37. These were the ones on the scene who felt the best thing for everybody to be happy was to never have had the bad event take place. God had other plans; God had deeper plans; God always has a far-reaching plan; God has the best plan. Those plans may come at the expense of our best, self-made plans.
“I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live (spiritually and eternally in heaven) even if he dies (physically,) and everyone who lives (physically) and believes in Me will never die (spiritually.) Do you believe this? John 11: 25-26.
So eternal life engulfs this temporal life and makes sense of it. All of our earthly dreams have to be transformed to something richer, and something not fully seen now. I get that, but I also get that Jesus is fully engaged in our present sorrows; our veil of tears we must experience while here.
” When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also who came with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled, and said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said to Him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ Jesus wept. So the Jews were saying, ‘See how he loved him!’ ”
We do not have to ask God to come near in sorrow. He is so near in such times we need to simply act upon the fact that He is moved deeply when we are hurting. We need not say, “If you have only been here.”
We may want to say, “Lord nothing is out of your control. You can do amazing things, even now, in this situation for temporal and eternal good. I trust you to work the good and bring people into Your kingdom, using me as part of that plan. Allow me to be close to you and feel the power and comfort of that future kingdom in present time. Transform my sorrows for good. My good plans for my life are well-meaning but short-sighted. Help my unbelief. Thank you for Your incredible peace in my heart, even now.” JWP 11/8/17