Dear Father,

There's something about how You operate that would keep us at peace if we knew: Your love is for Your glory. I'd like to take it from this angle: Lazarus had just died, but only after his sisters had called unto Jesus, while he was still sick, to come and heal him. When Jesus heard, “He abode two days in the same place where he was, and when He came, Lazarus had lain in the grave four days already.”

If this story were never retold, we would never know that the reason Jesus waited two days longer was for Your glory. From the perspective of Mary and Martha, the One who could heal sicknesses did not respond to the urgency of the matter while the one He loved was still alive. Their perspective was valid, but when we judge from clarity and reason, we see that Jesus’ perspective was valid too. Yet the struggle remains because we are often privy only to our own side of the story. Even more difficult is that we sometimes interpret Your love using our timelines and expectations.

So then, does Your love contradict Your glory? Can You become so interested in glory that You sometimes forget what it means to love? Except perhaps Your definition of love differs significantly from our perception of it, and You are under no compulsion to act because You have Your timelines too. And when our definition of the perfect time differs from Yours, it is not because You were late, but rather, we were too early. Or what really is the reason, Father? Especially in situations when our Lazarus never returns from the grave and our expectations are never met, can we still find Your love in our suffering?

We may never fully understand certain occurrences in our lives, but I hope that one day I will sit with You and raise these questions; but even without having all the answers, I have chosen to love You too.

Translations:
Slide 1: English
Slide 2: French
Slide 3: Bengali
Slide 4: Hindi
Slide 5: Urdu
Slide 6: Portuguese

#LettertoGod
#LoveofGod
#Glory
#perspectives
#tryingtimes