When God Is Silent

Like Mary and Martha, we can easily believe that God could have done better for us in difficult situations, but if we trust His timing, all will be good.

Read John 11:1-44

In times of urgent need, our prayers become fervent and our desire for a quick answer intensifies. It seems that if the Lord doesn’t intervene soon, the very thing we dread could happen. And without a detectable response from God, we may feel as if He doesn’t care—even though Scripture assures us He does (1 Pet. 5:7).

This may have been the way Mary and Martha felt after asking Jesus to come and heal Lazarus. They knew that the Lord loved them, but when He didn’t show up in time, their pain overtook their faith, and they both voiced disappointment: “…if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.” (John 11:21, John 11:32).

We have all said or thought something similar when the Lord didn’t answer our prayers as we hoped. But we know from Scripture that God’s purpose in all His choices for us is His glory (John 11:4). His goal is not to inflict pain unnecessarily but to let Christ’s life shine through us in hardship, to stabilize our confidence in the Father’s goodness, and to strengthen our trust in His loving sovereignty. His glory is for our good, and in this we can rejoice.