When Love Delays

Most of us believe trusting God means expecting Him to operate on our timeline—until John 11 shatters that illusion. What if love—and God’s deepest intentions—often look different from what we expect? 

In this eye-opening episode, Omar K. Mills dives into the story of Lazarus to reveal why God's delays are actually acts of love, rooted in divine purpose, not neglect or failure. Discover how Jesus’ seeming lateness wasn’t a mistake, but a powerful demonstration that love doesn’t always hurry. 

We break down why God’s timing often defies human logic, and why His delays are planned with infinite love and purpose. Omar unpacks how love refuses to be rushed, how Jesus’ tears at Lazarus’ tomb teach us that knowing God's plan doesn’t erase human pain, and why faith must cry and trust simultaneously. 

Expect surprising insights on divine sovereignty, the limitations we place on God's power, and why Jesus’ even distance-based ability to heal surprises us all. 

You’ll explore why Jesus' patience reveals a deeper truth—God’s love is patient, purposeful, and never limited by what seems possible to us. We analyze how opposition, suffering, and grief fit into God's perfect plan, and why sometimes the most loving thing He can do is wait. 

Learn to ask boldly for healing and provision while trusting that God's most loving outcome might be different than what you envisioned—yet still perfect. This episode is a must-listen for anyone wrestling with unanswered prayers, feeling abandoned by God, or craving trust in timing that feels painfully slow. Omar’s insights will encourage you to embrace divine delays, deepen your faith, and see that even in silence or setbacks, love is at work—perfectly and patiently. 

If you’ve ever wondered how to trust God when the outcome feels late, this is your guide to understanding divine love beyond human speed.

Use the story of Lazarus as your blueprint to live boldly in faith, trust deeply through grief, and embrace God’s perfect timing. Because sometimes the most loving thing God does is wait—until it’s just right for eternity.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Most of us know this story. Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. But if we jump straight to the miracle, we miss what John is actually doing. John 11 is not mainly about power, it's about timing, love, and trust when God doesn't move the way we expect. Let's begin in verse one. Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha. It was that Mary who anointed the Lord with fragrant oil and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. Therefore the sisters sent to him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom you love is sick. It's John 11 3. Lord, behold, he whom you love is sick. This is the message that Jesus receives. Now notice what the sisters don't do. They don't command him. They don't demand healing. They don't even explicitly ask the Lord to heal him. They simply place the situation before Jesus and appeal to relationship. The one you love is sick. Verse 4. When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it. Then John makes something very clear immediately in verse five. Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. This is our anchor. John wants us to know before anything else happens, Jesus loves these people deeply. All right, let that anchor you. Then verse six gives us one of the strangest verses in the entire chapter. So when he heard that he was sick, he stayed two more days in the place where he was. Let's put a quarter in the meter and park there for a sec. He loved him. Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. But when he heard what was going on, that Lazarus is sick. He's sick. Let's hang out two more days, right where we're at. Now, this is strange to us because what we expect is, well, Jesus loved him, and therefore he rushed to be at his side. But John says Jesus loved them, therefore he stayed. That's uncomfortable. Scripture is forcing us to confront something that we don't like to admit. Love does not always hurry. Love is patient. Let's jump down to verse 17. So when Jesus came, he found that he had already been in the tomb four days. Verse 21. Now Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask God, God will give you. Jesus said to her, Your brother will rise again. Martha said to him, Oh, I know he'll rise again in the resurrection at the last day. And Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this? She said to him, Yes, Lord, I believe you are the Christ, the Son of God, who has come into the world. Okay. Let's dig into that. Because here's something that most people miss, including me. Lazarus has been dead four days. Faux. F-O. Faux days. Which means, and don't miss this, because I did. And I didn't get it until I looked this up in the commentary, and Daryl Bach points this out. Even if Jesus had left immediately, when he heard Lazarus was sick, Lazarus still would have died before he arrived. That's something I've never thought about. I've read this a gajillion times, and not once has it ever occurred to me that he could have made it in time anyway. He would have, he would, Lazarus would have just been dead two days instead of four. So this isn't a story about Jesus being late. This is a story about Jesus refusing to operate on the clock of human panic. This is a story about Jesus refusing to operate on the clock of human panic. The delay didn't cause the death. The delay wasn't a mistake. The delay was intentional and loving. Bear in mind that God has infinite, He's the only being that has infinite options at his disposal. He can decide, he literally can do whatever he wants to do. He also is the full embodiment of love. He cannot do anything that does not flow out of a reservoir of love. It is impossible for God to hate. And so, therefore, anything he does is love. We may not understand that, we may not see that, but it doesn't make it untrue. And so, God, who has infinite options at his disposal, can do whatever he wants to do, however he wants to do it, decided to stay where he was. And this was the most loving option because he can do nothing else but be loved. This was the most loving option on the table. And he said, you know what? That's the most loving thing. That's what I'm gonna do with us wait. It was love, and that doesn't make human sense. And it's okay. We're just gonna own that. That don't make no sense to me sitting here. But I receive it because I understand that God is love. And this matters because many of us quietly believe if God really loved me, he would have moved faster. But John 11 says, not necessarily. Here's something else that's fascinating. Jesus doesn't need to physically be present to heal. And that's something else that, like, I like you don't think about when you read John 11 because there's such emphasis that is placed on if you had been here. Like when you read that, you immediately forget that in John 4, he healed somebody from a distance. So we've already seen it. We know he doesn't need to physically be there. But even Jesus says, you know, at uh, and we'll get to this, I'm glad I wasn't there. So even he kind of leads you down that path. But you know, when you take a step back, and again, this is all Daryl Bach, uh you look at it and you go, wait a minute. Man, you ain't had to be there. You could have just spoken it. If you, if you really wanted Lazarus to be healed, you could have just said, hey man, yeah, he's healed. And this is somebody he loves. So I want all of that to be in your mind as we proceed forward. Jesus could have spoken Lazarus whole from wherever he was. The wild part is nobody suggests that. Not Mary, not Martha, not the disciples, not even us when we read the story. We instinctively assume Jesus has to be there. That reveals something about us. We believe God is powerful, but we quietly limit how he's allowed to act. We believe God is powerful, but we quietly limit how he is allowed to act. And John 11 confronts that. Distance was never the issue, timing wasn't the issue, power wasn't the issue, purpose was the issue. Purpose. Early in the chapter, Jesus frames everything up. He says, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it. That does not mean sickness is good. It does not mean suffering is fake. It means death does not get the final word. And here's where things get a little bit more uncomfortable. Jesus knows what he's doing the entire time, which raises the question: if Jesus knew the outcome, why does he still grieve? Let's jump down to verse 32. It says, Then when Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying to him, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. Therefore, when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her weeping, he groaned in the spirit and was troubled. Verse 34. And he said, Where have you laid him? They said to him, Lord, come and see. Verse 35, the shortest verse in the Bible, Jesus wept. Now he knew what was going on. He knew what he was getting ready to do, but he cried anyway. Keep that in mind. Then the Jews said, See, see how I loved him. And then some of them said, Could not this man who opened the eyes of the blind also have kept this man from dying? Then Jesus, again, groaning in himself, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. Jesus said, Take away the stone. All right, let's dig into that. When Jesus arrives, Martha says, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. That's verse 21. Later, Mary says, the exact same thing. Lord, if you had been here, verse 32. And John tells us something striking. He groaned in the spirit and was troubled. That's verse 33. Now, groan there, that word doesn't mean mild sadness. It means deep emotional agitation, even anger. Jesus is not annoyed at weakness. He's angry at the intrusion of death, grief, and unbelief into a world he loves. And then again, the shortest verse in the Bible, Jesus wept, verse 35. This is critical. Jesus isn't weeping because he's uncertain. He's not weeping because he lacks power. He's not weeping because the plan somehow failed. He's weeping while fully knowing the outcome. And this tells us something profound. Knowing God's plan does not cancel human pain. I'm gonna say that again for those of y'all that didn't pay to sit up front. Knowing God's plan does not cancel human pain. Love doesn't make grief disappear. Love actually makes grief heavier. Jesus chose the most loving path, and it still hurt. And that matters because sometimes we think faith means not feeling anything. John 11 says, real faith can cry and trust at the same time. Martha believes in resurrection, but only eventually. Now Jesus reframes everything. He says, I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he may die, he shall live. Resurrection isn't just a future event, it's a person standing in front of her. Jesus doesn't promise explanations, he offers himself. And Martha responds with one of the clearest confessions in the gospel. Yes, Lord, I believe you are the Christ, the Son of God. Kind of reminds me of when Peter did the same thing. That confession matches the purpose of the entire gospel. And that's John 20 and 31. At the tomb, Martha objects.

unknown 13:59

Right?

SPEAKER_00 14:00

He's like, take away the stone. Hey, man. That dude has been up in there about four days. We put the stone over there for a reason. You know, you can't just be rolling that back because it's, you know, listen, it's not going to smell, you know, pleasant. It's not going to smell like a Senate candle in there. In fact, we're going to need some Senate candles if you pull that stone away. Even there four days, bruh. Martha speaks that empirically, and Jesus speaks eschatologically. There's a $25 word for you. And so Jesus responds, Did I not say to you that if you would believe, you would see the glory of God? Faith comes before sight, not after. Say that again. Faith comes before you see that the thing, not after you see the thing. You can't be like, I have faith after you, you know, did it. That'd be like saying, uh, me telling you I'm gonna predict who wins the Super Bowl last year, this year. It doesn't work that way. Then Jesus calls out, Lazarus, come forth, and we know what happens. The dead hear the voice of the Son of God, just as Jesus said in John 5. Let's jump to uh verse 47. Then the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered a council and said, Hey man, what are we gonna do? This man out here doing these signs, but if we won't do nothing, we just kind of let him keep chilling. Everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and nation. Hey man, we're about to lose the bag. We can't just have this dude out here doing this stuff. He's out here raising dead folk, man, and we can't be having this. So what we gonna do? And one of them, Caiaphas, being the high priest that year, said to them, You know nothing at all, nor do you consider that it is, don't miss this, expedient for us that one man should die for the people and not that the whole nation should perish. Now, this he did not say on his own authority, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation and not for the nation only, but also that he would gather together in one of the children of God who were scattered about, or scattered abroad. Then from that day on, they plotted to put him to death. Therefore, Jesus no longer walked openly among the Jews, but went from there into the country near the wilderness to a city called Ephraim, and there remained with his disciples. So after the miracle, everything changes. The religious leaders panic, hey man, we can't have this dude out here doing this stuff. Caiphus, the high priest, is like, hey, look, man, it is it's better that one dude die instead of everybody dying. Prophesying, he won't even realize he's doing it. So God used the words of someone who opposed Jesus to speak the truth about Jesus. And that should humble us. God doesn't need perfect people to accomplish perfect purposes. He can use the ops, he can use opposition, he can use broken systems, he can even use unjust motives. Nothing escapes his sovereignty. Here's what John 11 teaches us, especially when God feels silent or slow. Delay is not absence, distance is not limitation, love does not eliminate grief, opposition cannot derail sovereignty, and death is never final for those in Christ. Jesus walks in perfect timing even when it feels late to us. And sometimes the most loving thing God can do is not what we would have chosen. And that's hard for me because I'd be like, I like telling him what he should be doing. Amen. If I was you, I'd have done it like this. And it's not always what I would pick isn't the necessarily the most loving thing. So in closing, John 11 does not tell us to stop asking God for healing, provision, or rescue. It tells us to ask boldly and to trust deeply. So let's say you got a loved one who's not feeling well, and you know, you want to go to God, and you know, you're not sure what's what. And this can this can be challenging for believers because we want to trust God and say, well, you know, whatever God wants, I accept it. But at the same time, you want them to be healed. Man, ask for that healing. Trust in and want what you want. He wants you to come boldly. So trust in and asking boldly. In fact, I tell people all the time if you got somebody that is sick, you know, and you're not sure what's what, or really anything that you believe in for, man, have your faith should be defiant. I don't care what that doctor says. I I believe. God, I asked you for this. I want this. I want so-and-so to be healed. And I don't care what the prognosis is, what you know, and I'm not saying don't take your medicine, don't do, I'm not saying be stupid. What I'm saying is trust, radical faith. You can do that. That's bold. But also, what can also be true is you have the maturity to receive whatever it is that God decides is the most loving outcome. Ask boldly, trust deeply. Ask boldly, but you trust deeply. Because the same Jesus who wept at the tomb is the same Jesus who called Lazarus out of it. You feel me? And he has not changed.