We got to visit camp this weekend. I heart camp! It’s beautiful. It’s slower paced. It’s peaceful. It’s one of the best places on earth!
We were talking to Hayden about how the summer has gone. How was the programming, I asked? He told us they’d had a continuing skit about suicide. He gave us the gist of it…life gets really messed up, there seems no way out, but then at the end they spun it to show how things could be dealt with and how there actually was a different route to take.
Wait! Wow!! Has our world really come to this? We need to talk about suicide to our kids at summer camp? Yes! Yes, we do! Sadly! Suicide is at an all time high and it’s heartbreaking.
So at church the skit finale was performed. To us, it didn’t make a lot of sense, but the kids applauded loudly. And then Matthew talked so perfectly for a few minutes to the kids. Paraphrasing a bit, he said, “Sometimes our lives go great and everything is good! But sometimes it gets bad. Sometimes it seems there is no way out. Sometimes it seems Jesus is four days late in your life.” (He was referring to the story of Lazarus’ death.) Matthew wrapped it up so nicely and simply, but my mind was still stuck on the phrase “four days late.”
What has Jesus been “four days late” to in your life? Your divorce? Your diagnosis? Your attempt to “Stay Calm and Parent On?” Has He been “four days late” for the loss of someone you loved?
Sometimes we look around and wonder where He is. Like Mary and Martha. He could’ve made it. He could’ve stopped it. He could’ve changed it. He could’ve helped. But he wasn’t there. He didn’t show. He was “four days late” to the party.
But the thing we must believe. The thing we must cling to. The thing we must have faith in, is that Jesus is never four days late to the party! He IS the party!!
It’s not always easy for us to believe it, or understand it. And let’s just face it! Sometimes it’s hard to accept it, especially after He let something truly awful happen. But His ways are perfect. He’s made a way of escape. He makes all things new. He’s as sure as the sun rising in the East and setting in the West. He sees the beginning from the end and He is never even a moment late to our party.