Making The Most Of "Tarry" Time***

The Holy One calls to me this morning.  It is amazing how much I begin to see when I ask the Holy Spirit to lead me into all truth.  Thoughts of my “Lazarus” fill my mind and almost break my heart.  I say almost because the Lord has given me a promise that He calls to mind today. 

“Try to make the most of this “tarry” time”.

The Lazarus of Biblical time and friend of Jesus was made famous as one who was raised from the dead and restored in relationship and life with his two sisters, Mary and Martha.  Death had claimed him yet while he was still alive but sick, the sisters sent out an SOS for Jesus to come and heal their brother.

John 11:4-7, “When Jesus heard that (Lazarus was sick) He said, “This sickness is not unto death but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.  Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.  So when He heard that he was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was.  Then after this, He said “Let us go to Judea again”. 

Jesus delayed coming into the situation and he tarried (lingered) in the place where He was.  Mary and Martha, like many of us, petitioned that Jesus come and bring relief to the suffering and relieve their life crisis in a timely manner and they, not unlike many of us, had to wait for Him to arrive.

From their view things went from bad to worst and the unthinkable happened:  Lazarus died and Jesus, the One they knew could heal him didn’t show up.  They were forced into a “tarry” time which is the place between the petition and the answer they so desperately desired. 

I don’t know what those days were like for the sisters because I know the end of that story.  Jesus finally arrived and gave outrageous and convincing proof beyond all doubt that He is God.  Not only is He a Healer, but He is God of the living as well as the dead.

My “Lazarus” is not physically dead but in a dark place of what appears to be a form of spiritual death.  My “Lazarus” seems to be locked in a tomb of hopelessness and the despair of a life trial is like a death shroud that is wrapped around the soul.

I cried out for healing but it seems that my “Lazarus” slipped into a form of faith death and I am helpless to change his condition. I am caught in what I have come to term as the “tarry” time waiting for the Lord to come and wake my beloved up from his death and call him out of his tomb.

Whether your Lazarus is a husband, a child, a brother, a marriage gone cold as death, a vision that has died or an opportunity that seems to “lie in state” with no hope for revival, it is well to remember that Jesus operates on a different timetable than we do.  Every trial in life and most petitions we make for Divine intervention seem to be on a time-released schedule for seeing the answers.

In our fast paced world, the expectations we have is that our petitions will bring instant gratification and answers to whatever need we have.  It is nearly impossible to slow our roll, take up the Lord’s pace and appreciate that His timetable is eternity. 

While He tarries, we can draw the wrong conclusions and make the wrong assumptions that His delay is a denial.  It is important that we do not come under the tyranny of the urgent and lose our own faith while praying for the faith of another.

The Lord is preparing us for another world where the principles of our existence are different than the life we live here on earth.   When time is no more a consideration and death is no longer a threat, perspective changes.  In our world today, the “tarry” time is excruciating but from God’s eternal perspective it holds very valuable lessons about His Being.

The wisdom of the Holy Spirit and the words He chose to speak remind me that the answer to my fervent prayers will come and important for me today is that there is much to glean and even accomplish while I wait.

I need to trust in what the Lord has shown us in His life and death:  His greatest work was accomplished in the tomb beyond human eyes before He re-appeared as risen from the dead. 

Jesus loved the family so dearly that He tarried in order for them to have the greater revelation of His Being.  He wanted to show them and His Disciples (and us) that He was not just a Healer but the Author of life and conqueror of death itself.  Jesus is the eternal God of the impossible.  He was for Mary and Martha then and He is for us today.

I believe my prayers have a scheduled time for the Divine manifestation of the answers,   So until I see them, I will ask the Holy One to help me make maximum use of the “tarry’ time believing that He is coming with the greater answer which is resurrection life for myself as well as the ones for whom I pray.

The Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him?