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- Written by: Don Goulding
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the people who had come with her weeping, he was intensely moved in spirit and greatly distressed … Jesus wept … But some of them said, “This is the man who caused the blind man to see! Couldn’t he have done something to keep Lazarus from dying?” (John 11:33-37)
Her almond eyes couldn’t hold a focus. For a single heartbeat she saw me, then rocked her head away. A skeletal two-year-old lay in Chennai, India, her crib pushed away from the others, panting her last breaths. While our team toured the orphanage, Jesus led me to stroke the girl’s head, pray, and cry over the life that would never be on earth.
Before our Lord resurrected Lazarus, he took time to weep over his death. He had already declared he would bring his friend back to life, so why waste time grieving? Why not skip the heartache, restore life, and move on to rejoicing? Because when death visits, we should enter its pain, confess its source, and learn from its horror.
To answer the critics of Jesus, yes, he could have prevented the expiration of Lazarus, as well as the orphan girl in India. Instead, he mourned them, just as he mourned the day Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He realized their knowledge included curses and death. Now he mourns that we have the same knowledge.
Beginning with Adam, each of us followed Eve and ate after her in our own way. The curses of hunger, death, hatred, and more destruction than we can recount, poison every part of our life. The dark knowledge Adam and Eve came to know, we know equally well.
Jesus has promised that one day, soon, he will make everything new. No more tears, death, mourning, pain, and no more curse. But why not today? Because today is for mourning. We must weep so that, after creation is restored, we will remember what the tree made us know. Remember Lazarus, remember the orphan girl, and all the breadth of suffering an earthly lifetime can hold. Remember so we will never in all eternity eat from a forbidden tree again.
Prayer: Jesus, let me mourn death now that I might celebrate life through eternity.
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- Written by: Don Goulding
And we know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose… (Romans 8:28)
A pregnant woman was brought to me handcuffed in the back of a pickup truck in Africa. Her village concluded she was dangerous because of demon possession. They sent her to our prayer clinic at the mission station for deliverance. Her eyes rolled back while she babbled and shrieked.
After thirty minutes, I wasn’t sure we were dealing with a demon. It could have been a mental break, or a medical problem. After much screaming and thrashing about, she showed signs of risk to her physical health. We put her back in the truck to race her to the hospital. They treated for toxemia and she responded well.
To this day, I’m not sure what the correct diagnosis should have been. It seemed an over simplification to name any one culprit. Maybe she had practiced black magic until a demon took over. Maybe she only needed the right antipsychotic meds. Maybe it was late pregnancy preeclampsia. Or perhaps it was a combination of factors.
We often cannot pinpoint the source of our suffering. Is it spiritual, mental, or physical? It my fault or caused by another’s sin against me? Pain ripples across our pond only to intersect with other ripples until we can no longer discern which stone of human sin caused them.
We may not know the source, or the final outcome, but one thing is certain. Jesus is intimate with every hardship and he is at work to bring something wonderful out of them. There is a grand purpose behind each struggle, and Jesus is all over it like a duck on a June bug.
My part is to wait patiently, trust deeply, and love well. His part is to pull my ugly inside out to reveal its beauty. He will do his part, will I do mine?
Prayer: Jesus, thank you for leveraging my pain into good.
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- Written by: Don Goulding
We are all like one who is unclean,
all our so-called righteous acts are like a menstrual rag in your sight.
We all wither like a leaf;
our sins carry us away like the wind. (Isaiah 64:6)
From across the battlefield I saw the mark on my enemy’s face—evil black smudges. Zeal consumed my war against all who wore the stain, and I fired my weapon at everything that moved.
Then I paused from the fight to refresh with living water. But one cannot approach that sacred pool without looking at a reflection of self. A smudge marred my forehead, and no amount of rubbing made it go away.
I was the enemy. How could this be? Angry thoughts only deepened the smudge.
My comrades also bore marks. One of them jabbed his rifle toward the battlefield. “Sure, we have a little black, but not like those infidels.”
But now, I knew. The stain I’d seen on myself was shaped differently, but it made me the same as my supposed enemies.
Only when I release my grip on the condemnation of others, are my hands free to receive the grace of Jesus.
With my remaining ammunition, I must turn against the enemy within. It is he who urges me toward prideful judgment. It is he who would send me to hell in exchange for a little self-confident gloating. I must target the correct enemy and not my fellow sojourners.
Prayer: Patient Savior, may I fight sin in myself and let you judge others.