When God Lets It Die

I was sitting with a guy a while back who was watching a massive situation in his life fall apart in slow motion. He had prayed about it. He had asked God to intervene. But nothing was happening, and the clock had essentially run out. He looked at me, completely exhausted, and asked the question we all ask when the pressure red-lines: “Why didn’t God step in when I asked Him to?”

You and I both know that feeling. You’re in the middle of a storm, taking on water, and you send up a flare. You expect God to show up immediately and fix the problem. But instead of an immediate rescue, you get silence. You get a delay.

I’ve had more panic prayers than I care to admit. The kind where you’re checking your watch, checking the ceiling, checking everything except the one person who actually has the authority to do something about it.

And in that delay, our natural instinct is to panic. We assume that because God didn’t operate on our timeline, we’ve been abandoned.

The Purpose of the Delay

I was preaching on this recently, looking at the story of Lazarus. Jesus gets the urgent message from Mary and Martha: “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” It was a 911 call. They expected Jesus to drop everything and rush to the scene to heal their brother.

But Jesus does something that completely shatters our modern expectations of how God operates. He intentionally delays. He stays where He is for two more days. He waits until Lazarus is not just sick, but dead and buried.

Here’s the spiritual trap we constantly fall into. We think a delay means a defeat. We think that if the situation dies (if the job falls through, if the relationship breaks, if the money runs out), it’s over.

But God operates on a totally different frequency. Jesus delayed the rescue because He wasn’t interested in just providing temporary relief; He was after eternal glory. If He showed up early and healed Lazarus, they would have known Him as a great healer. But by letting the situation completely die and then stepping into the graveyard, He revealed Himself as the Resurrection and the Life.

Trust the Commander’s Timeline

Sometimes God lets the thing you are panicking about die so that He can resurrect it for His glory. Here in Southeast Missouri, we are building a tribe that doesn’t fear the graveyard because we know the Resurrector. He is more interested in revealing His ultimate power than He is in matching your preferred schedule. He is the God of new beginnings, and obedience in the fog means trusting Him even when the clock runs out. If you’re sitting in a season of grief and unanswered questions, hold your position.

Mission This Week: Stop panicking over the delay. If you are sitting in the middle of a dead situation right now and wondering where God went, hold your position. Remind yourself out loud today: God’s delay is not His denial. Fear the Commander more than you fear the storm, and let Him handle the resurrection.

See you Sunday,
Pastor Jeremy