I. When Heaven Seems Silent
The Cry for Connection
Dr. Edmund Stanley, in From Death to Birth, shares a haunting verse from a poem called “Victor: A Ballad.” Victor’s world has collapsed—his wife has betrayed him, his heart is in ashes. The verse tells how he walked through the village streets, out past the last houses to the rubbish heap at the edge of town. Standing there alone, staring at the sunset, his tears spilling down, he cried, “Are You in heaven, Father?”—and the sky seemed to answer, “Address not known.”
Most of us have been there. The crisis that shatters the night. The phone call you dread. The loss you never saw coming. The sickness that lingers. The supports you trusted suddenly crumble—and you whisper into the silence, “Father…are You there?”
And heaven seems quiet. You wait…and you wait…and you wait.
Your prayers come back unopened, stamped “Address Unknown.”
How do you survive divine delay?
How do you hold on when nothing moves?
The story of Lazarus gives us the answer. In John 11 we find direction for living through God’s delays.
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The Setting of Divine Delay
> “Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany… Therefore his sisters sent unto Him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom Thou lovest is sick. When Jesus heard that, He said, ‘This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God…’ Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. When He had heard therefore that he was sick, He abode two days still in the same place where He was.”
— John 11:1–6
The disciples were torn between sorrow and confusion. They knew how close Jesus was to that family. Bethany had been His retreat—where laughter and friendship soothed the weariness of ministry. Surely, they thought, when He hears that Lazarus is dying, He’ll go at once.
But He doesn’t. He stays. Two days.
No explanation. No visible concern. Just silence and delay.
And the disciples’ hearts filled with questions they didn’t dare speak:
“Doesn’t He care? Has He forgotten them? Why wait?”
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1 – Divine Delays Are Difficult to Understand
Let’s be honest—waiting on God is hard.
There’s a reason for that: delay goes against our nature.
We live in a culture addicted to instant. Push a button—light appears. Push another—music plays, doors open, voices answer. One-hour cleaners. Two-minute car washes. Overnight shipping. We don’t just live fast—we worship fast. We have cultivated the itch for the instantaneous.
Someone once joked that if all the cars in America were lined up in a straight line, 90 percent would immediately pull out to pass.
That’s us. No wonder we struggle when God doesn’t hurry.
But the Bible’s vocabulary is filled with one word that grates on the modern ear—wait.
“Wait on the Lord.”
“Wait patiently for Him.”
“Though it tarry, wait for it.”
The psalmists said it, the prophets repeated it, Paul echoed it.
Never once did God promise that waiting would be easy.
We need to settle it: divine delays are hard to understand.
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2 – Delays Are Part of God’s Plan
Verse 14 says:
> “Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead. And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe.”
Strange words—“I am glad I was not there.”
But Jesus was revealing something deeper: there was design in the delay.
Ellen White put it beautifully:
> “Christ had not only the loved ones at Bethany to think of; He had the training of His disciples to consider… For their sake He permitted Lazarus to die.”
What looked like neglect was actually mercy with a mission.
When Jesus waits, it’s never wasted time.
Usually, when life stops moving, we panic. We assume something’s wrong—God’s late, or we missed His signal. But in God’s plan there is no delay.
Human delay means late.
Divine delay means timed perfectly.
We cry, “Lord, I need You now!”
But heaven knows when now would destroy us—or when later will save us.
We live in a thin slice of time. God sees from eternity. We want release; He’s shaping revelation. And because we can’t see the whole picture, we misread His silence as absence.
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The Chemistry Set – A Child’s Perspective
When I was a boy, I received a chemistry set—my prized possession. I’d spend hours mixing mysterious powders in little glass tubes in the basement of our hospital building.
One night, a burglar broke in. The alarms screamed through the halls. Doors were pried open, medicine cabinets smashed, cash drawers emptied. I looked up at my father and said anxiously, “I hope they didn’t get my chemistry set!”
He smiled faintly and said, “I hope they didn’t.”
But his mind was on far greater things—the damage, the danger, the loss.
From my perspective, the world revolved around that chemistry set.
From his, there were layers I couldn’t grasp.
That’s how it is with God. When His timing confuses us, we panic over our little chemistry sets—our plans, our needs, our timetable—while He’s working a redemption plan vast as eternity.
We can’t see it all, so we wait.
And in the waiting, faith whispers: “This too is part of His plan.”
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3 – Delay Is Not the Denial of God’s Love
Here’s where many hearts stumble. If God loved me, He’d fix this by now.
When the delay drags on, Satan whispers, “See? He doesn’t care.”
That’s the same doubt that troubled the disciples. Because Jesus didn’t rush to Bethany, they wondered if He’d stopped caring. Maybe we misjudged Him.
When that question starts, it multiplies: “If He didn’t help John in prison, will He help us? If He didn’t save Lazarus, can we depend on Him?”
Jesus answered those fears tenderly. Verse 11:
> “Our friend Lazarus sleepeth.”
Our friend.
He hadn’t forgotten them.
He never forgets His friends.
Delay doesn’t mean disinterest. It simply means different timing.
Ellen White explains again:
> “In delaying to come to Lazarus, Christ had a purpose of mercy toward those who had not received Him… He tarried that by raising Lazarus He might give to His stubborn, unbelieving people another evidence that He was indeed the Resurrection and the Life.”
He waited not because He loved them less, but because He loved the lost more.
His delay was mercy on display.
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II - WAITING ON THE LORD
4 – The Stage of Glory
By the time Jesus reached Bethany, Lazarus had been dead four days.
To the human eye, it was too late for hope. The mourners were certain the story had ended. But Jesus was never running behind; He was walking in step with eternity.
Notice how everything in John 11 builds toward one divine crescendo.
If Jesus had arrived earlier, He would have healed a sick man.
By waiting, He would raise a dead man.
The greater the delay, the greater the glory.
When Martha met Him, she said what we so often say: “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.” That’s the heartbeat of disappointment—the if only cry of grief.
But Jesus gently lifted her faith higher. “Your brother shall rise again.”
She believed in a resurrection “at the last day.” But Jesus wasn’t talking about some distant event—He was talking about Himself.
“I am the Resurrection and the Life.”
Delays stretch our faith until it touches eternity. They move us from believing in a time to believing in a Person.
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Faith Beyond the Clock
Many of us want God to fit into our schedule.
We measure His care by how quickly He moves.
But Jesus measures love by how deeply He grows us in trust.
When the Lord seems late, He’s not detouring; He’s deepening.
The disciples had to see that. They thought tragedy meant defeat. But Jesus turned death itself into a stage for His glory.
He waited until the body smelled of decay—until there could be no human explanation. Then, in the hearing of His critics and His friends alike, He called a name that broke the silence of the tomb:
“Lazarus—come forth!”
It’s been said that if He hadn’t called Lazarus by name, every grave in Palestine would have opened.
Such is the power of His voice.
When Christ speaks, time and death both surrender.
The delay that looked like abandonment became the miracle that sealed His divinity.
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5 – Let God Be God
That’s the lesson every waiting heart must learn:
To trust enough to let God be God.
John, the disciple who watched Lazarus walk out of that tomb, would later sit exiled on the island of Patmos. He’d lost his freedom, his pulpit, his friends. The sea surrounded him like a prison wall. And yet this same man could write of a day when “God shall wipe away all tears… and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain.”
That’s not despair talking.
That’s faith that has learned to wait.
To let God be God is to stop demanding explanations and start expecting revelation.
It’s to believe that unseen doesn’t mean undone.
It’s to rest, even in the tension, knowing that every divine delay carries a divine purpose.
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6 – Faith Lived Out
I once read about a woman named Karen who had undergone radical surgery.
It was her first Sunday back at church. Her body was weak, her voice frail. She stepped carefully to the microphone, took a deep breath, and began to sing:
“It pays to serve Jesus.”
Every note trembled with testimony.
She was living in delay—but she believed the delay was still God’s design.
Her faith said, “I trust You to be God.”
That same faith has echoed through centuries of believers who learned to wait.
The saints of Hebrews 11—those who “subdued kingdoms, stopped the mouths of lions, obtained promises”—many never saw the fulfillment of what they were promised.
Yet they held on.
They understood that faith isn’t proven in the miracle; it’s proven in the waiting.
They were stoned, sawn asunder, slain with the sword—destitute, afflicted, tormented—but still they trusted.
Still they waited.
Still they sang.
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7 – Songs from the Valley
When I think of faith that sings through delay, my heart turns to our African American brothers and sisters—descendants of those who sang their hope through slavery’s night.
They knew about waiting.
When all seemed lost, they lifted their voices in the fields and cabins, turning pain into praise:
> “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen…”
“Sometimes I feel like a motherless child…”
But they didn’t stop there. They lifted their eyes toward glory and added,
> “Glory, hallelujah.”
That was not naïve optimism; it was defiant faith—an affirmation that sorrow and suffering will not have the final word.
Delay will not define the story.
God will.
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8 – The Gospel in Every Delay
At Calvary, it looked as if even Jesus Himself had been overtaken by divine delay.
The cross stood like the ultimate unanswered prayer: “If You be the Son of God, come down.”
He didn’t.
He stayed.
And the world mocked the stillness of God.
But the Father was not late. On the third day, the silence shattered.
The stone rolled away.
Resurrection morning proved once and for all that God’s delays are never God’s denials.
Every tomb that ever frightened you has already heard the echo of that morning.
Because He lives, every waiting moment in your life carries resurrection potential.
Every silence hides a coming shout.
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III - WAITING ON THE LORD
9 – Living Between Promise and Fulfillment
The hardest space for faith to live is between—between the promise spoken and the promise seen.
It’s the waiting room of faith.
That’s where Abraham waited twenty-five years for a child.
Where Joseph waited thirteen years in slavery and prison.
Where Israel waited four hundred years for deliverance.
And where the church still waits for the trumpet to sound and the eastern sky to split with glory.
Waiting isn’t wasted time.
It’s training time—the classroom where God shapes trust, obedience, and endurance.
The waiting room is where self-will gets sanded down and surrender grows quiet roots.
Isaiah 40:31 reminds us:
> “But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”
Waiting is not passive. It’s worship in motion—faith stretching its wings.
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10 – The Perspective of Heaven
From heaven’s balcony, delay looks different.
What we call late, God calls exact.
What we call silence, He calls strategy.
If the Father could be trusted to time the coming of His Son “in the fullness of time,”
then we can trust Him to time our answers in the same divine precision.
One day we will look back and see that every detour, every pause, every unhurried moment was a thread in a far greater tapestry of grace.
We will say, “Had He moved when I demanded, I would have missed what He was preparing.”
No wonder the psalmist could sing,
> “My times are in Thy hand.” (Psalm 31:15)
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11 – Lessons from Bethany
Let’s return to Bethany one last time.
When Lazarus came forth, he was bound hand and foot in grave clothes.
Jesus said, “Loose him, and let him go.”
Even miracles require participation.
God raises; we release.
He calls; we cooperate.
Waiting on the Lord does not mean standing still—it means standing ready.
Mary and Martha had prayed for healing.
They received resurrection.
God exceeded their request by rewriting their definition of hope.
When you and I wait faithfully, the same principle applies:
God often answers not according to our prayer list but according to His purpose list.
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12 – Trusting Enough to Let God Be God
So what does it mean to wait on the Lord today?
It means to trust Him when you can’t trace Him.
To rest when your prayers seem unopened.
To believe that love is still working behind the scenes.
It means saying with Job, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.”
With Habakkuk, “Though the fig tree shall not blossom… yet I will rejoice in the Lord.”
With Jesus, “Not My will, but Thine be done.”
Waiting on the Lord doesn’t shrink your faith—it stretches it until it reaches His heart.
Maybe you’ve been praying for healing, and heaven has been quiet.
Maybe you’ve carried a prodigal in your heart until your knees are sore.
Maybe you’ve buried a dream that once burned bright.
Friend, He has not forgotten you.
The silence is not absence.
The delay is not denial.
He is weaving glory into your story.
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13 – When God Shows Up
Someday, perhaps soon, you’ll see what Mary and Martha saw.
The same Lord who seemed to tarry will step into your situation, call your name, and prove that He was never late at all.
When that moment comes, you’ll realize something beautiful:
The waiting wasn’t punishment—it was preparation.
He was growing your faith so you could bear the weight of the answer.
And when you look back, you’ll join the chorus that rises from every healed heart and every opened tomb:
“He was right on time!”
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14 – A Faith That Sings
Faith doesn’t always shout; sometimes it simply sings.
It hums its hope in the dark, like those who once sang through slavery’s night:
> “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen…
Glory, hallelujah.”
They sang because they knew delay isn’t forever.
They sang because they believed that God’s tomorrow will redeem today’s tears.
And they were right.
Every believer who learns to wait on the Lord joins that same melody—
a song of trust that will crescendo into eternity when we see Him face to face.
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Appeal
Maybe right now you are standing at your own Bethany.
You’ve prayed, and the heavens are silent.
You’ve waited, and the answer hasn’t come.
Friend, hold on.
He’s teaching you how to lean.
He’s not late—He’s preparing the miracle.
Can you trust Him enough to let Him be God?
To believe that the hands that delayed are the same hands that were pierced for you?
If so, then rise today in quiet confidence and say,
> “Lord, I will wait. I will worship while I wait. And when You move, I will be ready.”
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Prayer
Father, You know how weary hearts grow in the waiting.
Teach us to rest in Your timing.
Remind us that delay is not neglect but design.
While we wait, strengthen our faith, stretch our trust, and steady our hope.
Help us to lean on Jesus until we learn that Your silence is still love speaking.
And when Your time comes, let us see Your glory—and give You praise.
In Jesus’ precious name, Amen.
