There In A Crisis, by Sarah Tummey.

Thanks to Sarah for these beautiful thoughts.

The other week, I was having lunch with friends. We were talking about Brexit, which is pretty big on the news these days. Will Boris Johnson get us out of the EU on October 31st, or will his opponents thwart him so they can keep extending the deadline? Whichever outcome you favour, you’d have to say there’s a lot of uncertainty here at the moment. To some it feels like a bit of a crisis.

Well, our friend told us over lunch that a Christian leader had said: “What crisis? There isn’t one, because God’s in control.” I get where the man’s coming from, but it sounds quite dispassionate. Is that something Jesus would say?

Yesterday, I was thinking about it in connection with Jesus and Lazarus. Lazarus and his two sisters, Mary and Martha, were friends of Jesus. In John 11, Jesus hears that Lazarus is ill. He waits several days and by the time he arrives at Bethany, where they live, Lazarus has died. Martha and Mary are understandably distraught. They thought Jesus could have prevented it, but they’ve just lost their brother. Now Jesus already knows He’s going to pray to His Father and raise Lazarus from the dead, causing many to believe in Him. That’s His plan, so when He comes across Martha, and Mary – the one who really wears her heart on her sleeve, how does He react? He could easily have said: “What crisis? There isn’t one. Look what I’m about to do, by the power of God!” But instead:

“When Jesus saw Mary crying and the Jews who came with her also crying, He was upset and was deeply troubled. He asked, “Where did you bury him?”
“Come and see, Lord,” they said.
Jesus cried.
So the Jews said, “See how much He loved him” (John 11:33-36).

It’s so important to read the gospels and get to know Jesus, so you can get an idea how He’d respond to a situation. Yes; ultimately we as Christians know that God is in control, but we all have to cope in the meantime. When I’m in a crisis, I like to think Jesus is with me, as He was with Mary at that graveside – shoulder to shoulder, feeling my pain and crying tears along-with me. “’The virgin will be pregnant. She will have a son, and they will name him Immanuel,’ which means “God is with us” (Matthew 1:23).

you can hear more from Sarah by subscribing to her Blog or by visiting her website