Die Lazarus Die

Writing School has wrapped up its second full week and what a week it was, with much learning, a few assignments, a quiz, critique groups, guest speakers, work duties, and most importantly, my one on one. These are where each student gets matched up with a writing school staff member to talk about what God is doing in our lives.

My staff member, as I soon discovered, was a smiling assassin. Happy, carefree, and a great listener, but he knew all too well how to pinpoint that soft underbelly, that slight chink in my armour that God wanted to cleave open.

I know without a doubt that God cannot love me any more, no matter how much or little I do for him, and yet, for years I’ve been living with a strong undercurrent of impatience masked as urgency. Urgency for what you ask?

That’s a great question, and the honest answer is I don’t know. I was never living in the moment, but always acutely believing that I wasn’t doing enough. That there was something God had put me on earth to do and I wasn’t doing it. And time was running out.

The gaping hole in my plan, was this : Historically, every time God has wanted me to do something specific, he would just tell me. I’m not talking about the general call of the Christian walk to treat your neighbour as yourself and to love God, but those times he had specific direction for me or my family.

What’s the current specific call and direction of God on my life? To be here in YWAM Kona and take this writing school. That’s it. That’s all the information he’s given me. So what happens when I try to add onto that? What happens when I’m sitting impatiently in class wanting things to move faster, or when I’m chaffing at the bit to dive into writing a novel, or essay or some other thing?

Well, I’m adding onto God’s word for my life because I don’t believe it’s enough. I don’t believe his timing is correct. I think he’s forgotten to communicate to me that world-changing assignment and I need to take matters into my own hands.

The Lazarus from John 11:1-44 is primarily known for doing two things. Being a friend of Jesus and dying. Sure his life consisted of many more aspects but millions of sermons have not been written about those things. Lazarus was never tasked with resurrection. Jesus and the Father managed to do that without his input. No, Lazarus had only been tasked with dying.

Can you imagine if Lazarus believed so strongly that he was destined for great things, and that he must not die, and that by shear force of will he held on for dear life another four days until Jesus arrived?

What a missed opportunity that would have been for Lazarus, who today is the poster child for God’s perfect timing and immense power over death.

Suffice to say I had some repenting to do … for not putting my full hope and trust in Jesus, for running ahead of him in impatience, and because I “knew better”.

Sometimes, our task is not to hang onto our life, waiting impatiently for Jesus to finally arrive and do his thing. No. Sometimes our task is to simply die, and through that, Jesus will ultimately get all the glory … and when the story of our life is written, that singular act will be more impactful than the million other ‘important tasks’ we thought we had to complete.