God’s timing is always perfect

If you are experiencing a delay to the answer to prayer, hang in there, writes Eric Gaudion

Receiving the news that his friend Lazarus from the tiny town of Bethany in Israel was sick and needing his help, Jesus did a strange thing. He stayed where he was, quite far away.

His disciples must have wondered what was going on. Didn’t Jesus care?

And over in Bethany, the sisters of young Lazarus were saying to each other, “If only the Lord had been here things could have been so different.”

For two days, Jesus waited until eventually he said to his team, “Let’s go back to Judaea.” And then, given the circumstances, he said something strange to them: “This illness will not end in death,” (John 11:4). This word from the Lord was in stark contrast to the reality on the ground at that moment. Lazarus was already dead – by then he had been dead for two days!

It was a prophetic word, but it was not how things looked to the family of Lazarus. Yet, however dark the situation must have seemed to those gathered around the grave of their much-loved brother and friend, Jesus was right. The illness may have involved death, but it would not end in death.

The timing of Christ was significant. He stayed where he was for two days after receiving the message, ‘the one that you love is ill’. If he had set out straight away, Lazarus would have been no less dead when he arrived, as he was in the tomb for four days when the Lord got there. Two days dead instead of four days dead is no less dead! So, what was going on with the messianic delay?

Such a short waiting time is very little compared to other great biblical stand-offs. Four centuries of slavery in Egypt must have been hard to bear. Seventy years of captivity in Babylon would also have been a dreadful trial for the people of God. Divine delays are not unusual, but neither are they easy to bear.

I have faced this mystery, and perhaps you have too. For over 20 years of remorseless pain and suffering I held onto a promise in God’s Word that I felt the Lord had given to me – “After you have suffered a little while, our God, who is full of kindness through Christ, will give you his eternal glory. He personally will come and pick you up, and set you firmly in place, and make you stronger than ever,” (1 Peter 5:10, The Living Bible). For decades that word from the Lord failed to chime with my circumstances, but I held onto it like a limpet attached to a rock. He did not fail me. God’s ‘little whiles’ can seem endless, but his delays are not necessarily his denials.

But in the case of Lazarus, why the delay? Firstly, the situation was not yet ready, not far enough away from human intervention or problem-solving. By the end of four days, nobody could claim that Lazarus was not really dead or had simply revived after a mistaken diagnosis. All burial formalities had been completed. Sometimes God waits until we have come to an end of ourselves before he intervenes. When all human hope was gone, he who is the hope of the world arrived on the scene.

Secondly, the right people were not present. When Jesus prayed publicly prior to calling Lazarus out of the tomb, he made it clear that his actions were ‘for the benefit of the people standing here, that they might believe that you sent me’ (Jn 11:42). God’s timing involves his purposes for all who will see and hear what he is doing. Indeed, Jesus told Mary and Martha that if they would believe, they would see the glory of God. And they certainly did!

So, if you are experiencing a delay to the answer to prayer for which you long, hang in there! God’s not finished yet.

Eric Gaudion is a retired Elim pastor and author of ‘Through the Storms’ and other books

This article first appeared in Direction Magazine. For further details, please click here.

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