We asked God for a miracle. From the moment we heard the words, "there is no heartbeat," we started praying. We asked, we pleaded, we begged, we declared, we hoped, we sang, we cried, we worshiped, we believed, we trusted.
I texted a group of friends and simply said, "We need a Lazarus kind of miracle."
Resurrection. Life. Heartbeat. Breath. Air.
We didn't get that miracle. The resurrection miracle that Lazarus did.
Funny thing though. That's not the miracle they asked for.
When Jesus came back to Bethany after Lazarus died, Martha and Mary both met him with the same words. "If you had been here, my brother would not have died."
Jesus could have healed him. That's the miracle they wanted. The one they expected. The one they dared to believe and hope for. They knew he could do it, and they believed that if he had been there, he would have.
Their faith wasn't the issue. They had incredible faith in what Jesus could do - their anger was because he hadn’t. He hadn’t done what they knew he could. He hadn't given them the thing they desired most. He hadn't even bothered to come back to Bethany when they asked for him, when they told him how desperate the situation was. And because he didn't come, Lazarus was dead, and their chance for a miracle was gone.
That's what they thought.
They couldn't even imagine the miracle of resurrection.
They didn't ask for it. They didn't pray for it. In fact, they almost stopped it.
When Jesus said, "Take away the stone," Martha protested, "But, Lord, by this time there's an odor - he's been in there four days!"
Can you imagine if he had listened? If he had heeded her warning? If he had limited his actions to match her vision?
But he didn't.
She couldn't imagine what was to come.
But God did it anyway.
God answered the prayer they didn't even know to pray, he gave them a gift they didn’t even think was possible, he delivered the miracle they couldn’t fathom on their own.
And if He did it for them, I have to believe He can do it for you. For me. For the Marys and Marthas of today, staring Jesus down saying, “Where were you? If you had been here you could have done something. How could you let this happen?”
I can’t imagine a miracle bigger than the one I prayed for.
I can’t fathom what God could be doing to bring good out of our story.
I have a hard time believing he can overcome some very real obstacles in our life right now.
I would guess my objections sound very much like Martha’s, “But, Lord!”
”Don’t you know? Haven’t you heard? It’s too late! There’s research, statistics, reasons, evidence, obstacles, barriers, roadblocks, and snags. There are impossibilities, God, can’t you see them?”
I want to tell him, “I believed for the impossible! I believed you could show up and resurrect her body. I prayed for the biggest miracle I could possibly imagine.”
Right after she was born I tapped my fingers on her chest for hours, praying it would start beating again. We laid down to sleep that night praying, "Wake us up with a cry in the night!" We hoped the doctors had been wrong and then we hoped that they’d been right - so there could be no denying what God had done, no question that she was dead and now alive.
“Where were you then? Surely that miracle would have been easier than whatever you can pull off now.”
And then I know. “Easy” isn’t in God’s vocabulary. Because “hard” has no meaning for him.
When it comes to miracles, there is no big or small, easy or hard, better or worse as we see them. And it can’t be too late.
Because what I can’t imagine, God is initiating.
While I’m objecting, God is orchestrating.
What I can’t conceive, God is composing.
And even when we don’t have the vision to ask, even then, especially then - he is rolling away the stone, breathing fresh life, and bringing forth miracles we can’t even fathom on our own.