Susan LaffertyAbiding in Christ. It’s how we live and grow as believers. How we stay rooted. And fruitful.
But what happens when the props are gone? No church down the street or across town. No familiar worship gathering in the heart language.
What happens when you don’t have a list of small group Bible studies to choose from. No Bible study workbooks for purchase.
And the internet is unreliable. Spotty. Occasional.
Perhaps you’ve been there. Or you are there.
We returned to Delhi the summer of 2012 and all I could see was the dust. It coated every leaf on every tree. It covered all surfaces outside and inside. A thorough cleaning of our apartment yielded little evidence of the hard work. A few hours later I was wiping off another fine layer of the stuff.
Waiting. Yesterday our pastor continued his series on “Unexpected Jesus.” Danny took us to the story of Lazarus. A story of delayed arrival. Unexpected timing that found the friends and family of Lazarus in the thick of grief, at the point of numb acceptance that their loved one wasn’t coming back.
In their traditional beliefs, the soul hovered above the body for three days. Waiting. But the fourth day? Gone. No hope. It was the pinnacle of sorrow and loss in the death of Lazarus. Decay had begun. And it was the day of Jesus’ arrival.