Mary and Martha could not understand what their Lord was doing. Each of them had said to Him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (vv. 21, 32). And behind their words we seem to read their true thoughts: “Lord , we do not understand why You waited so long to come or how You could allow the man You love so much to die. We do not understand how You could allow such sorrow and suffering to devastate our lives, when Your presence might have stopped it all. Why didn’t You come? Now it’s too late, because Lazarus has been dead four days!” But Jesus simply had one great truth in answer to all of this. He said, in essence, “You may not understand, but I am telling you that if you believe , you will see.”

Abraham could not understand why God would ask him to sacrifice his son, but he trusted Him. Then he saw the Lord’ s glory when the son he loved was restored to him. Moses could not understand why God would require him to stay forty years in the wilderness, but he also trusted Him. Then he saw when God called him to lead Israel from Egyptian bondage.

Joseph could not understand his brothers’ cruelty toward him, the false testimony of a treacherous woman, or the long years of unjust imprisonment, but he trusted God and finally he saw His glory in it all. And Joseph’ s father , Jacob, could not understand how God’ s strange providence could allow Joseph to be taken from him. Yet later he saw the Lord’s glory when he looked into the face of his son, who had become the governor for a great king and the person used to preserve his own life and the lives of an entire nation.

Perhaps there is also something in your life causing you to question God. Do you find yourself saying, “I do not understand why God allowed my loved one to be taken. I do not understand why affliction has been permitted to strike me. I do not understand why the Lord has led me down these twisting paths. I do not understand why my own plans, which seemed so good, have been so disappointing. I do not understand why the blessings I so desperately need are so long in coming.”

Dear friend, you do not have to understand all God’ s ways of dealing with you. He does not expect you to understand them. You do not expect your children to understand everything you do—you simply want them to trust you. And someday you too will see the glory of God in the things you do not understand. J. H. M.

If we could push ajar the gates of life, And stand within, and all God’ s working see, We might interpr et all this doubt and strife, And for each mystery could find a key . But not today . Then be content, dear heart; God’ s plans, like lilies pur e and white, unfold. We must not tear the close-shut leaves apart— Time will someday r eveal the blooms of gold. And if, thr ough patient toil, we r each the land Wher e tired feet, with sandals loosed, may r est, When we shall clearly know and understand, I think that we will say , “God knew best.”

The Hebrew of this verse literally means to “go on in the center of trouble.” What descriptive words! And once we have called on God during our time of trouble, pleaded His promise of deliverance but not received it, and continued to be oppressed by the Enemy until we are in the very thick of the battle—or the “center of trouble”—others may tell us, “Don’t bother the teacher anymore” (Luke 8:49).

When Martha said, “Lord, . . . if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (John 11:21), Jesus countered her lack of hope with His greater promise, “Your brother will rise again” (John 11:23). And when we walk “in the center of trouble” and are tempted to think, like Martha, that we are past the point of ever being delivered, our Lord also answers us with a promise from His Word: “Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve my life.”

Although His answer seems so long in coming and we continue to “walk in the midst of trouble,” “the center of trouble” is the place where He preserves us, not the place where He fails us. The times we continue to walk in seemingly utter hopelessness are the very times He will “stretch out [His] hand against the anger of [our] foes” (Psalm 138:7). He will bring our trouble to completion, causing the Enemy’s attack to cease and to fail.

In light of this, what reason would there ever be for despair ? APHRA WHITE

THE EYE OF THE STORM

Fear not that the whirlwind will carry you hence,

Nor wait for its onslaught in breathless suspense,

Nor shrink from the blight of the terrible hail,

But pass through the edge to the heart of the tale,

For there is a shelter, sunlighted and warm,

And Faith sees her God through the eye of the storm.

The passionate tempest with rush and wild roar

And threatenings of evil may beat on the shore,

The waves may be mountains, the fields battle plains,

And the earth be immersed in a deluge of rains,

Yet, the soul, stayed on God, may sing bravely its psalm,

For the heart of the storm is the center of calm.

Let hope be not quenched in the blackness of night,

Though the cyclone awhile may have blotted the light,

For behind the great darkness the stars ever shine,

And the light of God’s heavens, His love will make thine,

Let no gloom dim your eyes, but uplift them on high

To the face of your God and the blue of His sky.

The storm is your shelter from danger and sin,

And God Himself takes you for safety within;

The tempest with Him passes into deep calm,

And the roar of the winds is the sound of a psalm.

Be glad and serene when the tempest clouds form;

God smiles on His child in the eye of the storm.

If only my circumstances and my environment were altered . . .

“If only So-and-So were not trying to live with . . .

“If only I had the opportunities, the advantages, that other people have . . .

“If only that insurmountable difficulty, that sorrow, that trouble, could be moved out of my life; then how different things would be! And how different I should be.”

Ah, dear friend, you are not the only one who has had such thoughts. No less a person than Paul the Apostle besought the Lord three times that the thorn in the flesh might depart from him; and yet, it was allowed to remain.

A certain gentleman had a garden which might have been very beautiful had it not been disfigured by an immense boulder which reached far under the soil. He tried to blast it out with dynamite, but in the attempt only shattered the windows of the house. Being very self-willed he used without success one harsh method after another to get rid of the disfigurement until finally he died of worry and blighted hopes.

The heir, a man who not only had common sense but used it, soon perceived the hopelessness of striving to budge the boulder and therefore set to work to convert it into a rockery, which he covered with frescoes, flowers, ferns, and vines. It soon came about that the visitors to the garden commented on its unsurpassed beauty, and the owner could never quite decide which gave him the greater happiness—the harmonious aspect of his garden, or the success in adapting himself to the thing that was too deep to move.

So the unsightly boulder, which could not be removed, proved to be the most valuable asset in that garden when dealt with by one who knew how to turn its very defects to account.

God often plants His flowers among rough rocks!