After a year in a dark cell with his freedom taken away, John the Baptist wondered about this One whom he had proclaimed as the Messiah. Where was the kingdom? "Art thou he that should come? or look we for another?" (Luke 7)

But Jesus replied, "Blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me." 

God is God and He does it His way, not ours, in His time not ours. 

And John was left in the prison. He died there. 

Wow, I can so identify with this! Like John, I have proclaimed the Lamb. I have seen heaven opened as it were. I have seen the multitudes repent and turn to the Lord. But now, for the last four years, I have not had a pulpit. I have not had a congregation. I feel shackled and locked up.

Lord Jesus, did I do it right? If I did, then why have I been set aside? Why am I voiceless in this wilderness? All I want is to stand before the people and shout the grace of God, and to be heard.

Will I die here? Without ever preaching again? Without ever seeing another soul turn to you?

I am tempted to be offended at You. I am tempted to despise the darkness and the loneliness. 

In my heart is anguish and jealousy and frustration. 

I wish I could send you a messenger like John did. 

Maybe then You would answer.

 

Men want to prolong life. They don't want it to fade. They don't want it to end. They are afraid of it ending.

But not so with God. God has full confidence in his own resurrection power. God does not feel the need to prolong life. He knows that when a life ends, it can be resurrected to a newer, better life; A prolonged life only drags out the dying.

But men don't understand this. When the Lord Jesus mentioned that he would be crucified and then raised from the dead, Peter's response was, "This shall not be unto thee!" (Matt. 16).  Peter was not saying that Jesus shouldn't rise from the dead. He couldn't see that far. He couldn't see past the dying part. He didn't want Christ to die. The minds of men can only see up to death; they can not see through the death to the resurrection.

But God can and often does. Have you ever noticed that many of the miracles in our lives are not prolonging a life, but resurrecting a new one?

The treads on my car tires had begun to wear through. I prayed for God to reveal his mighty resurrection power. Well, that's not really what I prayed. What I really prayed was, "Lord, I need new tires. Please give me new tires." No sooner had I spoken the words than the left front tire blew out. God had allowed it to die. This was scary for me because in my human mind I wanted the new tires without the death of the old ones. But that is not how resurrection power works. It can't be raised to new life (quickened) unless it first dies (I Corinthians 15:36).

And God gave me new tires.

One day while I was at work, my wife called me. "Honey, the clothes dryer is on FIRE." After making sure that the right people had been notified, I hung up the phone and began dancing around the office with a big smile on my face. My boss wondered what had happened. I told him that we were getting a new dryer! Then I explained that God had allowed our old dryer to die, which could only mean one thing (since we obviously needed a clothes dryer), we were going to get a better dryer!

And, of course, we did.

When my job died, I wasn't so happy about it. I prayed the prayers of prolonging for months, but things at work just got worse. The dying was being dragged out. I was scared that one day I would arrive at work to find that we were permanently closed. Oh, how I worried and prayed. And, I sent out resumes and more resumes. But no hope came. Then just when I was as terrified as could be, God made a way through death. That job died, and a new and better one sprung up in its place.

God has full confidence in his resurrection power. Because of this confidence, he often will let that which we want or need the most to be taken away from us. He lets it die in order to answer our prayers. And he gives us a new life, a new job, a new set of tires.

So, maybe we need to stop praying for the situation to keep going.

Maybe we need to have more faith in God.

And pray for something new.