JOHN 11:20

Our greatest consolation yet is – Our God reigns! How we need to remind ourselves of this message especially in these unprecedented and cataclysmic times of the now! Sometimes we would like to think that we have things all figured out and then we realize that things are not at all how we thought they were going to be. Life surprises us! Storms erupt! Calamities happen! The sunshine disappears and instead of things going one way, they completely go the other way. I think it is true that life or things in life can conspire to sometimes blindside us and even to traumatize us if we are not careful.

Therefore, I choose to remind and encourage us today that the God in whom we have placed our trust and confidence remains sovereign and supreme! Now is no time for us to falter, fail, look away or despair. We must keep looking up with cheer and joyful anticipation of His soon return!

We stubbornly refuse to traffic in mournful despair and disconsolation! We say no to morbid despair and depressive darkness! Today in church we do like we did last week; we look up and worship. We pick up the pieces or we allow Him to pick the pieces up and we move on. We are persistently told that Jehovah – Jesus has a way of walking into dark, oppressive circumstances and turning things around. He knows exactly how to change the atmosphere, after He sovereignly allows things to happen.

Like Martha, we must get up and go out to meet Him (John 11:20) and receive the healing words and resurrecting comfort that He alone brings. We must continue to live, to hope, to really defy the odds and to transcend every device sent to break us and cause us to become cynical.

Honestly, the devil would love for us now just to sit at home and to refuse to come out – to sit at home feeling broken, devastated, completely dejected, downcast, void of hope, sullen and sunless. However, after proficiently ministering to Martha she is given the most urgent compelling message for her sister saying, “The Master is come and calleth for thee” (John 11:28). What happens next inspires us all. The writer of this insightful gospel informs us “As soon as she heard that, she arose quickly and came unto him” (v29).

The truth is, so many are now tempted to sit at home deflated, distressed and distraught, but I really feel the message from heaven for every disappointed soul is “Don’t stay at home.” Do like Mary and Martha! As Jesus came toward them, they went toward Him. They looked to Him. We do like we did last week, even when the outcome is different to what we were expecting. We refuse to stay at home. We continue looking to Him! Despite every unsettling disappointment we sense a miracle of unprecedented proportions is about to transpire right before our very eyes. Don’t stay at home!

Leroy V. Greenaway