{"id":3494,"date":"2024-03-19T07:48:37","date_gmt":"2024-03-19T11:48:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=3494"},"modified":"2024-03-19T07:48:37","modified_gmt":"2024-03-19T11:48:37","slug":"when-jesus-doesnt-show-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/19\/when-jesus-doesnt-show-up\/","title":{"rendered":"When Jesus Doesn’t Show Up"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>
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Every day during this season of Lent we\u2019re looking at the miracles of Jesus \u2013 his spectacular displays of supernatural power that are reported in the Gospels.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/em>
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It\u2019s wonderful to have good friends in all the right places.
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Life is so much easier if you\u2019re close to an excellent real estate agent.\u00a0 And an outstanding plumber.\u00a0 And a financial planning wizard.\u00a0 I am blessed to have a cherished friend who also happens to be a great dentist. \u00a0The Shane Company says, \u201cNow you have a friend in the diamond business,\u201d which they are happy to report is the longest-running advertising campaign in radio history.\u00a0 \u00a0
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When a man named Lazarus becomes seriously ill, his sisters Mary and Martha must feel on top of the world.\u00a0 They have a friend in the healing business.\u00a0
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They dial 911 for Jesus.\u00a0 \u201cLord, the one you love so very much is sick\u201d (John 11:3).\u00a0 If he hustles, he can get there before Lazarus slips away.\u00a0 Geography, of course, is no obstacle.\u00a0 Jesus can heal from a distance, if he so chooses, since he\u2019s done that on multiple occasions. \u00a0
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Strangely, unexpectedly, maddeningly, he does nothing.\u00a0 \u201cWhen he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was\u201d (11:6).\u00a0
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Author Rebecca McLaughlin notes, \u201cJesus frequently healed strangers\u2026 But this time, when his closest friends cry out, he waits.\u00a0 This is the first reality with which Christians must grapple.\u00a0 Sometimes, we call Jesus through our tears, and he does not come.\u201d\u00a0
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Lazarus dies.\u00a0 Four days later, Jesus finally shows up.\u00a0 Martha descends upon him.\u00a0 \u201cLord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died\u201d (11:21).\u00a0
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Jesus doesn\u2019t disagree.\u00a0 Nor would he disagree if you have ever prayed, \u201cLord, you can take away this disease.\u00a0 You can restore this accident victim\u2019s brain activity.\u00a0 You can heal my child.\u201d
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So, why doesn\u2019t he?\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>
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There is no question what the New Testament teaches.\u00a0 We live in a broken world.\u00a0 God cares about every experience of pain.\u00a0 Because of that, God heals.\u00a0 None of that sounds mysterious until we confront two realities:\u00a0 God heals what he chooses to heal, and God keeps his own timetable.
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Here we should pause to acknowledge that God has already given us astonishing resources for restoration.\u00a0
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We have immune systems that we are still just beginning to understand.\u00a0 Our bodies are equipped with defense mechanisms that heal scratches, hunt down bacterial invaders, and are even capable of re-growing substantial parts of certain organs.\u00a0 We also need to thank God for doctors, nurses, counselors and psychologists \u2013 his primary human allies in the quest for healing \u2013 and to receive with gratitude the medications and procedures they have helped develop.\u00a0
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It\u2019s heart-rending when people profess trust in God by refusing to give medicine to their sick little ones, as if we must conclude, \u201cI\u2019m sorry, but amoxicillin doesn\u2019t count as an answer to prayer.\u201d\u00a0
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In his book Prayer: Does it Make any Difference? <\/em>Philip Yancey points out that the same people who insist that God must always be trusted for direct medical intervention don\u2019t grow crops that way.\u00a0 They don\u2019t plant rice in the Sahara Desert and then pray that God will send rain \u2013 ignoring the evidence that a desert is a very poor ecosystem to support rice.\u00a0
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Our world has a God-provided structure and order.\u00a0 Most Christians have believed that it pleases God for us to live and work within that structure, and to welcome the best that science, technology and mental health have to offer.
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It\u2019s also true that followers of Jesus can be just as clueless about reality as those who have no faith at all.\u00a0 A hundred years ago, if you lived in Holland and went to a Dutch Calvinist church, you almost certainly smoked cigarettes. People who didn\u2019t smoke, in fact, were considered unspiritual. God-fearing Dutch Calvinists eventually learned, along with the rest of the world, that tobacco is full of toxins.\u00a0 They concluded that the need of the hour wasn\u2019t to pray with greater passion concerning the cancer and emphysema they were experiencing.\u00a0 Their healing choice was to stop smoking.
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Dr. James Dobson once received a letter from a young woman who tearfully explained, \u201cI\u2019m expecting a baby and my boyfriend and I aren\u2019t married.\u00a0 Why would God allow this to happen?\u201d\u00a0
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Free will is one of God\u2019s excellent gifts.\u00a0 But it comes with the corollary that we have to respect the reality of reality, so to speak.\u00a0 God won\u2019t miraculously intervene every time we paint ourselves into a corner.
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Back in the heyday of the PTL Club<\/em> television ministry, Tammy Faye Bakker announced that her beloved little dog Chi-Chi had eaten a pile of lima beans and died.\u00a0 \u201cI thought my world had come to an end,\u201d she cried.\u00a0 When God didn\u2019t answer her prayers to raise Chi-Chi from the dead, she arrived at this explanation: \u201cThe fact was that Chi-Chi was a naughty little dog.\u201d
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There are two lessons here.\u00a0 First, always maintain a safe distance from lima beans.\u00a0 Second, when a prayer for healing goes unanswered, we must refuse to act on the impulse to place the blame at the feet of the one who is sick.\u00a0
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From time to time, lavish promises have been made: \u201cSimply believe, and no matter what kind of healing you seek, God will provide.\u201d\u00a0 But when Jesus doesn\u2019t show up, the finger usually points to the suffering person.\u00a0 You didn\u2019t have enough faith.\u00a0 <\/em>Or, more insidiously, God must be punishing you.<\/em>
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Countless people have felt far worse about their dyspepsia or their diabetes or their depression because well-meaning Christians have said, \u201cYou\u2019re not doing it right.\u201d
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If God is, in fact, able and willing to heal, should we pray about anything and everything?\u00a0
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Should I pray, for example, for God to restore my hair to its original blond color that I saw in the mirror for my first 25 years?\u00a0 Should I ask God to put an end to the continuing progression of little frailties that are afflicting my body at this later stage of life?\u00a0
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All the evidence points to the fact that God is not going to prevent me from getting older and dying.\u00a0 All of us are terminal cases<\/em>.\u00a0 Every one of the original disciples, all the great saints and theologians of the ages, and all the faith healers of the past who boldly declared that God always heals, are no longer in this world.\u00a0
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Ultimate healing won\u2019t be ours until we receive new bodies in heaven.
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Since God\u2019s miraculous interventions in this world seem so hit-or-miss\u2026since good-hearted people tend to promise too much or too little in God\u2019s name\u2026and since God has chosen not to give us answers to all the questions we have\u2026are prayers for healing really worth our time?\u00a0
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We can come up with a hundred reasons why we shouldn\u2019t bother asking Jesus to show up in our hour of need.
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But there\u2019s one compelling reason we should do it anyways:
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Jesus did in fact comfort the afflicted, cast out demons, and heal broken bodies.\u00a0 And he told his disciples to do the same.\u00a0
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And as he goes deeper into his conversation with both Martha and Mary, he opens their eyes to realities they never suspected \u2013 which is where we will go the next two days. \u00a0

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here\u00a0Every day during this season of Lent we\u2019re looking at the miracles of Jesus \u2013 his spectacular displays of supernatural power that are reported in the Gospels.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s wonderful to have good friends in all the right places.\u00a0Life is so much easier if you\u2019re close to an excellent real estate agent.\u00a0 And… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3495,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[449,700,11,179],"class_list":["post-3494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-healing","tag-lazarus","tag-miracles","tag-prayer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3494"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3496,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3494\/revisions\/3496"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}