More Glory

If you’ve never read the story of Lazarus, read it here before you continue reading.

This week in Bible I’ve been teaching my students the story of Lazarus. We’ve talked a lot about the feelings Martha probably had when Jesus didn’t come right away to heal her brother and instead waited until he died to arrive at their home.

“Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died,” she said.

I am like Martha in so many ways right now. “Lord, if you had done things differently, then _______.” The Lord never needs to do things differently because His timing and His plans are perfect.

I’ve also talked to my students a lot about why Jesus didn’t come right away to heal Lazarus.

Was Jesus able to heal a sick Lazarus? Absolutely.
But God was looking to show Himself in a way that was much more powerful for the purpose of glorifying Himself and drawing others to Him.

Healing a sick man–easy and predictable.
Raising a dead man’s life–impossible and not expected.
God allowed Lazarus to die so that Jesus could do something only he can do.

When we (as Christians) are in a situation where we have to make tough decisions, when faith is all we have yet it seems that our faith isn’t big enough, when we have options and all of them seem like the right thing to do, we have to ask ourselves, “What will give God more glory?“

What puts us in the place where God is most glorified?

Long story short, very short: Brent has decided to be a Farmer’s Insurance agent. He isn’t getting paid anymore from his previous job and he hasn’t begun to sell insurance yet due to necessary classes and licenses.

We have financial options:
1. Get a loan or line of credit to get us through the next few months until Brent can sell insurance and is making a decent commission from the policies. This option makes sense because he can devote all his time to meeting with people, selling them insurance…all in all, getting the whole process going quickly.
2. Make some MAJOR cuts to our budget (which, you know how frugal I am, our budget was already seriously cut to begin with) and Brent can get a part time job. This option makes sense because we won’t be going into debt to get this insurance thing going. However, even a part time job wouldn’t make up for what is needed every month, so we would still be depending on God to provide in other ways.

Option 1 is like Jesus healing Lazarus…possible, not a bad option, but not the most powerful way for God to show His glory. This is a comfortable option. And we feel reassured knowing that we have easy access to money if needed. Trusting God can easily become a choice with this option.

Option 2 is like Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead…seems impossible and unlikely, but completely takes us out of the equation and welcomes the power and provision of God to show up in a mighty way. We are absolutely not in control and trusting in God is not a choice, it’s required. God is most glorified here.

Neither option is necessarily the wrong option, but the second one puts us in a place of dependency on God and allows Him to be most glorified. 

God has already provided in numerous ways:
1. A check in the mail from our mortgage company because they overestimated our escrow amount.
2. We have EXACTLY (literally) the amount in savings we need to get us through the end of March (assuming we pay for nothing but bills, daycare, groceries, and gas…although, I’m sure other things will come up and we will trust that God will provide).
3.  One of our friend’s from church is in construction/home improvement and has asked Brent to help him on a job Friday and Saturday.

God is REAL and He is always working for the good of those who love Him and have been called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28). AMEN!