Can good really come out of bad?

Have you ever had a crisis overwhelm you to the point that you didn't think you could survive? Or, have you ever faced a set of circumstances that you simply thought you wouldn't be able to get through? Have you ever said to God, in so many words, "Lord, where were You?"

Our son, Christopher, went to Heaven unexpectedly at the age of 33. It hasn't been easy. But I know that God's Word is still true and that God can bring good out of bad.

In the New Testament we find a story about the unexpected death of a loved one and the grief that inevitably follows. But it is also a story of how Jesus reacts to such a situation. It also demonstrates how God could be glorified through such circumstances.

Mary, Martha, and their brother, Lazarus, were friends of Jesus. They lived in Bethany, within striking distance of Jerusalem. So often when Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem, he spent time with his good friends.

But one day, Lazarus, the friend of Jesus, became very ill. So, Mary and Martha did what everyone ought to do in a time of crisis: they sent word to Jesus. They said, "Lord, your dear friend is very sick" (John 11:3 NLT).

They didn't tell Jesus what to do. They essentially were saying, "Lord, we wanted to let you know, because we think you will know exactly what to do."

However, when Jesus heard about it, he said to his disciples, " 'Lazarus's sickness will not end in death. No, it happened for the glory of God so that the Son of God will receive glory from this.' So although Jesus loved Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, he stayed where he was for the next two days" (John 11:4–6 NLT).

Because Jesus loved Lazarus, he delayed his arrival. Why would he do that? This doesn't really make sense when we look at it. Yet God wanted to do more than they were expecting. And God might demonstrate his love for us in a way that we don't always understand.

We live in the here and now. God lives in the eternal. We are interested in what will benefit us today. God is thinking about the big picture and what will make us more like Jesus, transform us, and make us stronger spiritually.

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That is exactly what was happening in this story. Jesus loved Lazarus. But he was going to demonstrate this in a different way altogether. He delayed his arrival, and Lazarus died. Not only that, but by the time Jesus arrived in Bethany, Lazarus had been dead for four days.

Martha went out to greet him and said, "Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask" (John 11:21–22 NLT).

To paraphrase, "Where were you anyway, Jesus?" You always knew where you stood with Martha. She never was one to hold her tongue.

Maybe you've said that before in so many words: Where were you, Lord, when my marriage dissolved? ... Where were you when my parents divorced? ... Where were you when my child went astray? ... Where were you when my loved one died?

Notice that Jesus didn't reprove Martha for what she said. It isn't wrong to tell God how you feel. I think sometimes we feel as though we can never express our fears or our doubts to God. That is not the case at all. Martha was expressing her fears and her doubts. And Jesus didn't rebuke her for it.

We see in the Old Testament how the psalmists cried out to God. For example, Psalm 42 says, "Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again – my Savior and my God!" (verse 11 NLT).

I've done this many times. In my pain, I cried out to God. I described my pain to him and then reminded myself of God's truth. This is what prayer is.

When problems, trauma and hardship come, sometimes we withdraw from God or get angry at him. But that is when we need him more than ever. Cry out to God with your doubts. Cry out to him with your pain. He will patiently, lovingly hear you. He might set you straight, but he wants you to cry out to him.

That is exactly what Mary and Martha did.

Jesus went to the tomb and told them to roll the stone away. He prayed, "Father, thank you for hearing me. You always hear me, but I said it out loud for the sake of all these people standing here, so that they will believe you sent me" (verses 41–42 NKJV). Then he called Lazarus to come out. And the man who had been dead for four days came back from the other side alive.

For followers of Jesus Christ, the tomb is not the entrance to death but to life. And what will be waiting for us on the other side is better than what we have here.

In the meantime, God can be glorified through our suffering and bring good out of bad. Sometimes God is glorified through the removal of a difficulty. And there's nothing wrong with calling out to him and asking him for that. But at other times, God is glorified in the adversity.

We are all going to have tragedy in life. Some of us will suffer more than others. Some of us will have more calamity than others. But God can be glorified through the suffering of a Christian and use it to display his power to a lost world.

When tragedy comes, when crisis comes, God will give us the strength we need, when we need it – not necessarily before, but when it is required. He will bring us grace to help us in our time of need.

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