John 11:21 Martha then said to Jesus, "Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.

We are all like Martha. If from our perspective, something bad happens, we conclude it happened because God doesn’t love us or wasn’t there. We naturally have the “If only…” syndrome. If we think God should orchestrate the affairs of our lives according to our desires, we forget that God’s ways are higher than our ways. His goal is not our comfort and convenience in this world, but to glorify Jesus in this world. The Fall and its resulting pain, sorrow, suffering and death are His stage upon which He displays His love, comfort, mercy, forgiveness, preeminence, power, authority, and glory (just to name a few). Lazarus’ untimely death, from Martha’s perspective, is actually perfect timing for God’s purposes. Had He been there, and Lazarus not died, none of what we know and see about Jesus in this narrative would have occurred. You can almost hear Jesus say in response to Martha, “Exactly! I need Him to be dead.” As you look upon all of the events of your life and are tempted to think, “If only…” remember that everything has occurred exactly like God planned to glorify His Son. We can’t see it yet because of our self-centered perspective. We only need to wait for it.