excerpts from "Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World"

i got this email from my friend, Elizabeth, on Sunday night. i just wanted to share it because it is so relevant for my life right now:


my small group is doing a study called "having a mary heart in a martha world". it has been great, and this week, has been no exception. the words are ALWAYS timely. this is what we studied this week. it ministered to me as i am still dealing with the loss of my mom and i hope it can minister to you as well.... i thought of both of us and wanted to share these bits and excerpts from chapter 8. it is called lessons from lazarus. this is regarding his death and how mary and martha handled it...

again... the whole chapter is wonderful... but these are just bits and pieces...

three things we can learn from the story of lazarus:

* God's will does not always proceed in a straight line.
that means that i will not always see a clear connection between point A and point B. i won't always see the pattern in what happens to me. i won't always understand the plan. one reason for this is that God is weaving together a greater glory than just my own. as paul explains in romans 8:28, we know that all things work together for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. it is God's purposes, not mine, that must prevail. he is concerned not only with the individual need, but with the corporate need as well..... so don't be surprised if your personal plot takes a couple of twists now and then. don't get upset when point A doesn't automatically lead to point B. there are no detours in God's story line, not really. just complications that he's more than able to resolve.

the author of salvation does really know what he's doing even when we can't figure it out. God always has a plan. but it may not follow human logic.

these are the hard questions we must wrestle with in the story of lazarus. why would Jesus allow such sorrow to come to a family who loved him so much? why would he withhold his power to heal when he'd healed so often before?

trials are real. bad things happen - to good people an bad people alike. and we who are christians don't escape life, paul says. we overcome life! .... for while life may shake, rattle and roll, this rock-solid truth from john 11:5 remains: "Jesus loved martha and her sister and lazarus." just like he loves you....

the love christ has for you is a love you can cling to, for it will hold you. though we may not understand God's methods, that doesn't change the fact of God's love.

* God's love sometimes tarries for our good and his glory.
while we may never understand why God's love sometimes lingers, we can rest assured that God's love is always at work. he may not move according to our schedule, but he is right on time for what is best. and he has our ultimate good forever in mind.

* God's ways are not our ways, but his character is still dependable.
if you are struggling to hang on in the midst of your difficult circumstances, let me remind you to go back to what you know about God. open the bible and find scriptures to cling to - scriptures that reveal the heart and faithfulness of God. remind yourself that God is your strength. that he is your source of comfort. that he won't let you fail. that he loves you passionately and only wants the best for you. "we only trust people that we know", says martha tennison, popular women's conference speaker. "if you are struggling to trust God, it may be because you don't really know God."
however, God's ways are not our ways. his plots often don't take the direction we think they should. and even his grammar is not our grammar. for it is against this backdrop of despair that we find God's grammar rule number one.

#1 - NEVER PUT A PERIOD WHERE GOD PUTS A COMMA...
too often, according to ray stedman, we interpret God's delays as God's denials. but the story of lazarus tells us that "a delay in answer is not a sign of God's influence or his failure to hear. it is a sign of his love. the delay will help us. it will make us stronger."
but God's ways are not our ways, and his timing rarely coincides with our own. while God is never late, i've found he's rarely early. that is why we must trust his schedule as well as his character.
cece winans writes in her book, "on a positive note":
"faith is about how you live your life in the meantime, how you make decisions when you don't know for sure what is next. what you do with yourself between the last time you heard from God and the next time you hear from God is the ongoing challenge of a life of faith."
so never put a period where god puts a comma. just when you think the sentence is over, the most important part may be yet to come.

#2 NEVER PUT A COMMA WHERE GOD PUTS A PERIOD...
there are times in every life when God writes the end to a chapter, when he asks us to say good-bye to something or someone who has been important to us. it might be a spouse, a parent, a friend. it might be a job we've loved, a city we've enjoyed, a prejudice or an assumption that we've always thought was true.
endings, in a sense, are inevitable. dead ends, failed possibilities, and brick walls will disappoint us all. and when those endings come, we can fight them as peter advised Jesus. or we can accept them as Jesus did, as coming from the father's hand.
laura barker snow writes beautifully about these times...
"my child, i have a message for you today; let me whisper it in your ear, that it may gild with glory any storm clouds which may arise, and smooth the rough places upon which you may have to tread. it is short, only five words, but let them sink into your inmost soul; use them as a pillow upon which to rest your weary head... this thing is from ME."
his periods may not be our periods. his commas may not be our commas. his ways may not be our ways. but God is the one telling the story, and we can trust him to take the tale in the right direction. we can have faith that everything really will turn out right.

* God's plan is released when we believe and obey.this is one of the most exciting lessons of all, because it means that God's story, in a sense, is interactive. we are an integral part of the writing process. our choices play a part in the unfolding of the plot! just as adam and eve's disobedience blocked God's purpose, our obedience releases his plan. faith and obedience go hand in hand. it takes faith to choose obedience and if you're like me, it takes obedience to choose faith when you're quaking with fear. but when God speaks a promise to our hearts, we can take him at his word. that's what martha did. and as she did, faith arose to help her take the next step; to obey him when he spoke, even when what he told her to do, seemed completely impractical.

*the "end" is never the end; it is only the beginning.
when Jesus came late to bethany, his lateness was AN ACT OF LOVE. a gift of perspective. a foreshadowing meant as a MERCY, not only for mary, martha, and lazarus, but for his disciples and for you and for me.
we will all die... lazarus eventually did... you and i will...
death does sting, even when we know better. it hurts to leave behind the people we love. it hurts to be left behind. we will all encounter many more hurts on our journey toward the grave. sometimes the story of our lives seems like one painful episode after another... and Jesus knew that.
today we suffer. today we don't understand. but someday, in that eternal tomorrow, that same Savior who weeps with us will wipe away every tear from our eyes. he'll unbind our graveclothes of earthly flesh, and we'll be set free. someday all the scattered, broken pieces will fall into place, and we will suddenly understand the hand of God has been upon us all the time! all the tragedy - all the darkness - will instantly be swallowed up by triumph.
what a perfect ending to our imperfect stories.that's the love of our master storyteller God!