Faith Beyond Belief

A few months back, my beautiful wife, Jen wrote a blog on the story of Jesus raising Lazarus back to life found in John 11. In that blog, she brought attention to the actual miracle itself and spoke of how God can resurrect things in our lives that have died and how He cares for our hurts and pain in the midst of that death – even when that death will ultimately be used to bring about a miracle of resurrected life!

I wanted to take a moment and revisit that same passage of scripture but with a different focus. Many of us are very familiar with the story itself: Lazarus, a friend of Jesus becomes sick and ultimately dies. His two sisters, Mary and Martha, send word to Jesus about their brother’s physical predicament in hopes that He can come and heal his ailment. Jesus receives word of the need and deliberately stays away a few extra days until Lazarus ultimately dies and then comes to Bethany to meet the sisters. The sisters, family and friends are perplexed by Jesus’ lack of response and share their opinions on what could have happened if Jesus had only arrived sooner. Then Jesus surprises everyone and raises Lazarus back to life.

As I reread this scripture the Lord was drawing my attention to three particular verses/responses from each of the main ‘players’ – Martha, Mary and the gathered crowd of mourners. The overwhelming theme that captured my attention in each of the responses was a strong sense of BELIEF in the power and person of Jesus Christ but with a limited FAITH based on current circumstances and present understanding. Allow me to show you what I mean as we look at each of the responses:

“When Martha got word that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him… “Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died.” (John 11: 20-21).

“When Mary arrived and saw Jesus, she fell at His feet and said, “Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died.” (John 11: 32).

“The people who were standing nearby said… “This man healed a blind man. Couldn’t he have kept Lazarus from dying?” (John 11: 36b-37).

Each of the responses has the same proclamation - the complete belief that Jesus was fully capable of healing Lazarus from this sickness. In fact there seems to be no doubt that if He had arrived just a few days sooner this death would have never happened. Even the on-lookers seem to have the same unwavering belief that Jesus had the ability to save Lazarus from death!

What I am amazed at, and where I find myself in the story, is that this same cast of characters who profess the BELIEF in Jesus’ ability to heal Lazarus from sickness also have a clear limit of FAITH that considered there was another possibility.  They believed Lazarus’ death meant that all was lost. 

They have the courage to believe that Jesus can heal and perform miracles because they have seen them with their own eyes and have heard the accounts from others. However, in their humanity, there were limits to Jesus’ power. They can believe in the supernatural but only when it involves the manipulation of the natural – a withered hand made straight, a sick person made well, a blind man receiving sight. But this was different. This miracle stretched beyond the natural and moved outside the realm of understanding. It never occurred to them that Jesus was taking that which was dead and bringing it back to life.

How many times do we do the same thing? Do we put limits on what Jesus can accomplish in our lives? I know that I am incredibly guilty of this in my own life. I am able to muster enough faith and belief to see God work a miracle but only up to a point. Only up to the place where I can still comprehend and still see how God could make that work. Although it might be a mental stretch for me to understand but as long as I can still see the dots (no matter how faint) that God is connecting then I can believe and have faith. But is that really faith?

The challenge for us is to surrender our desire to understand and submit to the greatness of our God! After all, Scripture tell us, “As high as the heavens are from the earth, so My ways are higher then yours”. And if I truly believe that statement, then I must come to the conclusion that even if God explained himself to me I still would not get it.

We must learn to let go of our humanity and let God work without obstruction. Surrender our human way of thinking and allow the Lord to function without limits and beyond our comprehension.

The goal is for a faith that moves beyond belief and trusts that God can truly do anything. Let my prayer become like that of the father who was asking the Lord to heal his demoniac son, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief”.  Let my circumstances and humanity not become a limit to what God can accomplish.

During this prolonged season of unemployment I have found myself putting limits on God and my sense of belief based on what I can “see” in front of me. As long as there were jobs to apply for and websites to search then there was ‘hope’ and ‘possibility’ on the horizon and therefore God could move at any moment. This was opposed to the days when the listings were thin and the opportunities were nil, which made me feel God was far away and the possibility of the miraculous was gone. All along, I have wanted God to provide a job for us – but He has chosen to give us provision in numerous other ways, most I would never have thought to even consider.  And yet, His provision has been miraculous and faithful!

Where in my life do I need to remove the limits or boundaries that I place around God? Where do I need to surrender my beliefs and allow faith to move beyond them to accomplish God’s purpose? No matter what I believe about God, He is more and greater than I can possibly conceive of, comprehend or even imagine.