15 Minute Pity Party

Lex Videre, Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, Lex Vivendi.

When I was in my early 20's, I had the immense honor of having one of the best roommates ever.   Jann was our lead intercessor at the church, an amazing mother, and more importantly a mentor.   She taught me so much about being a woman of God, and I needed her more than I could really describe.    I was a worship director, working full time in corporate America and navigating the "wait" for my man of God.    

During one of my venting sessions with Jann, she told me about the "15 minute Pity Party".    It goes like this:   I don't like my circumstance, so I set the clock for 15 minutes, then I proceed to whine, cry, lay in bed and pound my fists like a 2 year old having a temper tantrum.  When the alarm goes off, I take a deep breath, wipe the tears from my eyes, and go back to worshiping and believing.   

Growing up in the church and the fish bowl of being "the pastor's kid", I learned that crying, asking why, being sad, mad or just plain confused were all signs of a lack of faith, and that "good Christians" were always full of joy and peace and patience.   Any time I would be hurt or sad I would come under so much condemnation, and then begin the self beating for my lack of faith.   It was always worse whenever I would get discouraged while waiting for the promises of God in my life (you know, the whole "Hope deferred makes the heart sick" kind of discouraged?).  

Confession:   Sometimes I still feel bad for feeling bad.

This weekend was particularly tough.   I have been believing for a particular promise for almost 6 years, and while I have complete confidence in God's character as a promise-keeper, I have days that I have to fight to keep His character in front of my circumstances.   On Sunday morning I was startled awake by a dream in which some friends were celebrating fruit of MY promise, but I wasn't, and they were rubbing it in a little bit.  When I woke up, I was completely heartsick, and thought "Why them, and not me?"   It was a struggle to even get out of bed and drag myself to church, but I did.    And of course, it was amazing and just for me, but then I digress.   

On Sunday afternoon, I was working it out with the Lord, and I just kept hearing "Jesus wept.".    I thought that maybe Jesus wept because he didn't know initially that God was planning to raise Lazarus up, and I was planning on making this great analogy that sometimes we don't know that God is planning something glorious just around the corner.    But then today I actually read the story in John 11, and to my surprise, the story was a lot different than I remembered.     In the first couple of verses, Jesus learns that Lazarus is sick, and He tells the disciples, "this sickness is not unto death".   A couple days later, Jesus decides He wants to go visit Lazarus, at which point His disciples freak out.  After all, last time they were in the region, people were trying to stone Jesus.   But Jesus says, "Lazarus is sleeping, and I need to go wake him up."    They were oblivious, so Jesus just laid it out there:   "Lazarus is dead.".     We don't see Him showing any kind of emotion at this point, because He knew that His Father had plans to be glorified and that Lazarus wasn't going to stay dead.    Then He goes to visit the family, and Lazarus' sisters are crying and asking Jesus "why weren't you here?".    And He still remains calm, telling them that they will see Lazarus again.   It wasn't until Jesus saw Mary crying along with the mourners at the grave that we read, "He groaned in the spirit and was troubled," and when He saw the grave he wept.    

We have no record of how long he wept, but we can gather that it was a deep grief by the response of those who witnessed it.  "See how He loved him," they said.     Now, I've heard many pastors teach that Jesus wept because of all the unbelief.    While that may be true, I put this out for consideration, based on Hebrews 4:15 which tells us that Jesus can sympathize with our weaknesses.    I think that Jesus wept because He was confronted with the death of a loved one.   He "had a word", and knew that Lazarus would live again, but when He came face to face with Lazarus' death, He felt grief.      He felt grief, and He wept.    

But then He did something crazy.   He worshiped.   Jesus went to the tomb and started His prayer with, "Father I thank you that you have heard me."   It fascinates me that He started with this statement, because it came right after the weeping.    Psalm 56:8 says that God puts all of our tears into His bottle, and Jesus rested in the fact that His Father heard His cries.    

We all know the rest of the story.   Jesus calls Lazarus out of the grave after being stinky dead for 4 days, and all those who were close glorified God.    

I could be way off, but I don't think that God ever asks us to deny our emotions and the painful things in life. I do believe, however, that He doesn't want us to be ruled by our emotions by focusing on the circumstances.   His plans really are perfect.  His timing is perfect.   His love is perfect.    So if you, like me, struggle sometimes with waiting and believing for His promise, set the alarm clock for 15 minutes, cry, scream and pound your fists.  Then get back up, and worship Him.   He is good.  He loves you.   His grace is bigger and His love is wider and His mercy is higher and He is worthy.   

As we see, so we worship, so we believe, so we live.