When Jesus Waits
Read: Matthew 14:24-25; John 11:5-6
These disciples were seasoned fishermen who knew how to handle a boat, yet Mark tells us Jesus saw them “straining at rowing” against the wind. By the time He came to them, “in the fourth watch of the night,” they had been battered for as many as nine hours. Jesus saw their struggle from the mountain, in the middle of the night, and still He waited. Why?
That is difficult to reconcile with the Jesus we know, and it raises an honest question: does He not care? Consider another story in the Bible, involving Mary and Martha. When they sent word that their brother Lazarus was ill, they simply wrote, “Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick.” John’s next sentence is remarkable: “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when He heard that he was sick, He stayed two more days” (John 11:5-6). Notice the word so. His love and His delay were not opposites. Jesus waited because He loved them, and because on the far side of the waiting stood a resurrection, and with it a truth they could never have grasped otherwise: “I am the resurrection and the life.”
Perhaps you are somewhere in the third watch, wondering why help has not come. Take heart. Delay is not denial, and it is not abandonment. The hardest hours may be the very place where He is preparing to show you who He is. Because, as with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, He loves you.
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