There was a question the Lord laid on my heart today. If you are sorrowful, or sad, does that mean that you do not have faith? And the answer is "no, but..." Just because you are feeling sad, does not mean you do not have faith. As a matter of fact, the presence of sorrow does not measure your faith at all. Only the author of your faith, God, can measure it and by the Holy Spirit, work a good work in you to perfect it. The enemy can, and does, however, use the sorrows of this life as a snare to attack our faith, weakening it. And as a daughter of the King, we Christian women need to sharpen our arrows on this point. One way we can keep alert is to understand how the enemy uses sorrow to develop codependency, because in many ways, that is where it all starts.
I have been struggling with this question for a while now. There have been very hard days where I think my heart is just grieving. And in times past (pretty much every other time in my past), my first instinctive reaction to sorrow and heartbreak is to make the pain just stop. And I started allowing the enemy to get in my head, because he was offering to "make it stop." The only problem was, it was by way of sin and trying to make it stop by filling assumed voids in my heart by the approval and acceptance of others. And because I could never please or satisfy anyone all the time, that same void kept coming up empty. And ALL I WANTED was for the heart/soul pain to stop.
But one day, I was having one of those sorrowful days. At first, I couldn't even pinpoint exactly why. It just felt like my heart and soul ached. Just this deep, deep sorrow down on the inside. It wasn't depression -- I've been there, done that. Then I attributed it to just being physically overspent and tired. Don't get me wrong, I was very physically, mentally and, therefore, emotionally tired. But I think the Lord used it to show me that these hurts, these sorrows, need to be addressed. I couldn't stuff them or ignore them. I couldn't prioritize other busy-ness of being a single working mom again over the need for doing my part in my own healing and recovery. So, I was sitting by myself praying and the tears just started flowing out. And finally I said, "Lord, I know you work all things for my good. I know you are still faithful. I know you are in control. But this still sucks. This still hurts."
In John, Chapter 11, we read the story of Jesus bringing Lazarus back from the dead, and I admit, I am very guilty of having the attitudes of Mary and Martha:
A man named Lazarus was sick. He lived in Bethany with his sisters, Mary and Martha. This is the Mary who later poured the expensive perfume on the Lord’s feet and wiped them with her hair. Her brother, Lazarus, was sick. So the two sisters sent a message to Jesus telling him, “Lord, your dear friend is very sick.”
But when Jesus heard about it he said, “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. Finally, he said to his disciples, “Let’s go back to Judea.”
But his disciples objected. “Rabbi,” they said, “only a few days ago the people in Judea were trying to stone you. Are you going there again?”
Jesus replied, “There are twelve hours of daylight every day. During the day people can walk safely. They can see because they have the light of this world. But at night there is danger of stumbling because they have no light.” Then he said, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but now I will go and wake him up.”
The disciples said, “Lord, if he is sleeping, he will soon get better!” They thought Jesus meant Lazarus was simply sleeping, but Jesus meant Lazarus had died.
So he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. And for your sakes, I’m glad I wasn’t there, for now you will really believe. Come, let’s go see him.” v. 1-15
Jesus knew Lazarus was going to die. He also knew the purpose God, the Father, was working behind the pain, using the enemy's attacks for a higher good. And Jesus knew that the enemy had worked his way into the minds of Mary and Martha. He needed to shine His light into their minds to reaffirm their faith, so they wouldn't stumble. But let's take a look at Jesus' response to Mary and Martha when he finally arrived, reading from verse 32:
When Mary arrived and saw Jesus, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
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. “Where have you put him?” he asked them.
They told him, “Lord, come and see.” Then Jesus wept. The people who were standing nearby said, “See how much he loved him!” But some said, “This man healed a blind man. Couldn’t he have kept Lazarus from dying?”
Jesus was still angry as he arrived at the tomb, a cave with a stone rolled across its entrance. “Roll the stone aside,” Jesus told them.
But Martha, the dead man’s sister, protested, “Lord, he has been dead for four days. The smell will be terrible.”
Jesus responded, “Didn’t I tell you that you would see God’s glory if you believe?” So they rolled the stone aside. Then Jesus looked up to heaven and said, “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.” Then Jesus shouted, “Lazarus, come out!” And the dead man came out, his hands and feet bound in graveclothes, his face wrapped in a headcloth. Jesus told them, “Unwrap him and let him go!” v. 32-44
I don't believe Jesus was angry because Mary and Martha were sad and grieving. And I don't believe Jesus wept because he felt a sort of loss over Lazarus dying.
Earlier in the chapter, Jesus gently asks Martha what she believes about it all. She stated she still believed He was the Messiah and that she would see her brother again (sounds familiar). And she says this immediately after asking Jesus why he delayed in coming because, in her mind (and the minds of the disciples, as well), the only way Jesus could have saved him was to stop it from happening in the first place (also sounds familiar). But Jesus gently reassures her that Lazarus is sleeping, NOT dead, not gone. In this way, Jesus reminds Martha that physical death of the body for a Christian is not the end of their story, nor is sorrow.
I believe Jesus was angry because they had allowed the enemy to get into their heads and cloud their understanding and trust in Him. This narrow, earthly way of thinking limits the power of God in our minds and in our hearts, hindering our lives. The enemy had a motive for attacking Lazarus, which was, and still is today, to stop the will of God. It never works and will never work. God is always a gazillion steps ahead. And God allowed Lazarus to die in order to evidence that Jesus was His son, the Messiah.
I believe Jesus wept because their weakened faith broke His heart. But He loved them unconditionally, as children, so he helped them understand that nothing the enemy does to us - not even death - gets the final say.
Martin Luther once said about thoughts, "You can't stop a bird from flying over your head, but you can surely keep them from building a nest in your hair." We also can't keep the sorrows of this life away, but we can surely keep them from taking root in our hearts, by grace through faith.
The last thing I said in my prayer, after telling the Lord, "this still hurts and it still sucks," was asking for his comfort. Jesus didn't scold Mary and Martha for being sad. But He did comfort them with the truth...His truth. And sometimes I believe the Holy Spirit sits with us, letting us know He is there, but he stays silent - much like when Jesus kept away for three days. Just because we don't see an exit on the highway yet, doesn't mean we're not still on the highway. Then He gently asks us to repeat again what we believe in our hearts.
I repeated, stating out loud my faith that He is still good, He is still in control, and He works all things for my good — because God's Word, when spoken out from our spirit, has power over the enemy. And the more I professed these things, even through tears and heartache, the more my soul started to cast out the sorrow. The more the Holy Spirit uprooted the enemy's lies and planted His truth in my mind and heart. And you know what? I wasn't sad anymore. The problems and things making me sad were still there (still are today), but like Lazarus, it's not the end of my story.
Love in Christ and still striving to be...
Very Kimberly
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