Life Spark: God is bigger than your ‘if-only’s. (John 11:28-38)
Last week I pulled out of the hardware store parking lot onto a busy main road, heard tires squeal, and yelled “no!” just before the front right bumper of my truck slapped a passing car. If only I had slowed down. If only I had paid closer attention.
“If only” makes a good whip. There’s the if only I whip, if only you whip, if only someone whip, and if only God whip. Snap! Snap!
Have you ever thought “If only …” at a funeral? Funerals are fertile grounds for ‘if- only’s. When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” (John 11:32, NIV)
One of the ways we deal with death is blame. We blame ourselves, we blame others, we blame God. It’s bewildering to watch a friend waste away in spite of sincere prayer. “Where is God? Couldn’t He have stopped this?”
I’ll give Mary this. She chided Jesus to His face and not behind His back. I’ve noticed that the psalmist David did that a lot in the Psalms. Jesus didn’t go sit under a palm tree and pout when Mary ‘if-only’ed Him. Rather than getting angry at Mary, He got angry at death. When Jesus saw her weeping and saw the other people wailing with her, a deep anger welled up within him, and he was deeply troubled. … Jesus wept. (John 11:33,35 NLT, NIV)
When the friends of Lazarus saw the tears, the compassion, the anger of Jesus, they sang their part in the ‘if-only’ choir. “He cares and He can, so why didn’t he heal Lazarus?” The thing about ‘if-only’s is they tend to cement you into the past. Jesus didn’t let the ‘if-only’s stop Him. He strode tearfully to the grave of Lazarus to deliver death an angry knockout punch.
So what can I learn from Mary and Jesus? First, be honest with God. He’s not intimidated by my “If only you’s”. Second, be open to what God may do, even if it doesn’t fit my formula or timetable. And third, I can stay close to Jesus. He may even trump my “If only you…” with His own “What if I …”
Life-action: Think of one ‘If only …’ that tends to hold you in the past and totally let go of it, trusting God to trump death with life.