Thursday, August 10, 2017

John 11:35 -- On Weeping

"Jesus wept."
John 11:35


This is a very short but interesting verse.  Christ cries at the death of Lazarus.  For a regular person this seems normal, but for Jesus, knowing he was about to bring him back from the dead, it maybe seems a little bit off.  And it's kind of like that with God in general, right?  He's got this perfect perspective, and he can see, and control, anything he wants to, and still he's emotionally involved?  It's hard for us to see, and we often think that he is detached, playing games with us, and not crying over us because we feel distant and we have a hard time understanding or relating to God.

I guess on one level we can relate because we've probably all been emotionally involved in movies or books before, even when we knew how they ended.  We still cared, and were invested enough in the characters to feel for them.  Of course, Christ is like 30 billion times more invested in us (low estimate), because through the atonement he suffered our pains and sicknesses and for our sins, which is a very intimate look into each of us.  We don't think people understand because they haven't walked in our shoes, but He *has.*

I think this verse is amazing because it shows us very clearly that God cares.  He cares about what we are going through, because we care.  Even when he knows it will shortly turn around or be okay, he cares about us in that moment, and doesn't dismiss our emotion as pointless or counterproductive. :)  He feels it with us, and he can help us to stand and become stronger because he knows how it feels, and *also* for bonus points, knows how to help us deal with it, and learn from it.

Today, let's recognize how much God cares for us, and let's learn to trust him and his perspective. 

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