Your Four-Day-Dead Dream: What if there was a resurrection?

He wasn't suppose to die.

Lazarus had a cure. The cure. An all-access VIP pass to answered prayer. He would live. It was what Martha wanted most. And, because Jesus loved her, He would never deny her what she wanted most.

Right?

Martha believed her story would always be victorious. Imagine her devastation when she realized she had read her genre wrong. She was the protagonist in a tragedy.

This wasn't suppose to be your story

You were so certain. So sure. What you dreamed of having or doing or seeing or being, what you hoped for yourself or your family, would come true. God would answer that prayer. It was a good prayer. A right thing to want. He would show.

Then He didn't.

The time came and went. The moment passed. The door closed and locked. It wasn't suppose to end like this.

Where do dead dreams go when they die? A tomb. Deep and cavernous, cold and black. Only an entrance. No egress.

Not the end but a lengthy third act

A few years ago, while reading Beautiful Things Happen When a Woman Trusts God by Sheila Walsh, I began to view the story of Lazarus differently and, with it, my own dead dream. What I didn't understand in Lazarus' story was the significance of Jesus waiting four days.

I'm not alone, though. Martha didn't understand it, either.

If the point of the story was to illustrate His resurrection power, wouldn't any moment after the last breath do ya? Four days seemed odd. Lengthy. Inconvenience. A little insensitive. Did He not understand Martha's broken heart?

Never doubt. God is always in the details.

From Beautiful Things:

"The Jews, you see, believed that for three days the soul might return to the grave, thinking that it would reenter the body; but on day four it sees that the color of its face has changed and leaves for good.....after three days all hope of recovery was gone." 

All. Hope. Gone. Got it. Dead is dead is dead.

Except when it's not.

Jesus waited for a reason. He was making a point. A big one with an exclamation at the end. He was saying, "Death isn't death. Not with me. Not even after four long days when all hope is gone."

Never underestimate the author

Writers are all about plot twists. We're sneaky that way. Besides, a journey without challenges is boring. A clear path from Point A to Point B isn't a great story, it's an instruction manual.

The more insurmountable the obstacle, the bigger the victory. We don't cheer on protagonists that face inconveniences. We root for heroes that face the impossible.

 The worse the odds, the sweeter the win.

"So Jesus moves toward the tomb....He tells some of the men to remove the stone from the grave's opening. Martha is horrified. It was hard enough to bury Lazarus's lifeless body, but to open the tomb after four days and face the stench and decomposition is too much. Jesus senses her panic. He turns to her and reminds her to trust him. He's simple and clear here. No matter how things appear, Martha, believe."

No matter how things appear. No matter. Believe.

Final isn't always final

You may believe there is no hope left. Your dream is four days dead. It's died the death of deaths. It's past revival. And, if you think it's all up to you, that would be correct.


But, with God, the dead rise.

They shake off the earth that buried them. They breathe again. They awaken and start anew. They walk out of that tomb. They shrug off their burial clothes. They call out to friends and family and joy returns. They rescue the mourners. They officiate the celebration. They toast to the new day and the bright future. They restore our lost faith. They revive our defeated heart. They make everything new again.

They live. Even though they were dead.

Death isn't always death

Lazarus came to me today, which is so like him, always showing up when he's not expected. His life, his death, his life again, I woke up thinking about him and his story and, of course, his sister Martha.

What were those days like for her? Those hours sitting by the window, staring down the road, desperate to see a glimpse of Jesus in the distance and seeing nothing. All the while her brother perishes beside her.

Then he's gone. And the days tick by. One. Then two. Three. And finally four.

Did she watch the sun rise on that morning? Did she grieve anew at, yet again, her loss of hope? Did she feel unloved, overlooked, or even rejected by Jesus?

Today, on Good Friday, Jesus' disciples experienced a similar defeat. They dreamed the dream of a Jewish King. That king died on a cross today. It wasn't how the story was supposed to end.

But the story wasn't over. A bigger, better dream was actually beginning. This was the first step. An earthly king? Oh, no. What they thought was death was actually God showing them He could do so much better than what they imagined.

How about a heavenly kingdom that never ends. A house right next door to Him. A love that forgives all. A savior that gave everything. And, just because God is a ridiculous kind of giver, an eternity with no tears or sorrow.

It was all coming. Even when Jesus died. Even when they buried Him in the tomb. Even as the days passed in fear and grief. Resurrection was coming.

No matter how things appear. No matter. Believe.

When you're in the desert, don't drink the Kool-Aid.

The 4:55 pm flight to Anchorage didn't have me on it. And I wanted on it.

I wanted an aisle or window or middle seat. I wanted to be cramped and stuck sitting between two severely big-boned women. Or men. I wanted a little turbulence, a harrowing trip to the bathroom, a magazine selling gadgets to flip through, a child crying somewhere in the vicinity, a stewardess who smiled despite her furrowed brow, and a tiny plastic cup with exactly two ice cubes and slightly chilled water to keep me pacified for six to eight hours.

Around 10 am that morning, I had made the decision. Forget this life. Let's try another. So I checked that day's available flights, did a mental inventory of clean clothes, and started making plans. 

By sundown - Alaska. There, I'd start fresh with several hundred dollars less than when I woke up.

Freedom! Spontaneity! I'd chuck this writing gig and learn deep-sea fishing. Or pipelining. Or shopkeeping. Or lounge singing. Or selling souvenirs to people in the Lower 48 who came to God's country seeking an escape.

Stupid tourists.

I wanted on that flight. I wanted that life. I was even willing to pay a ridiculous price tag if it meant leaving before sunset. But, obviously, I didn't go. A friend talked me off the tarmac with a blunt observation, "You're in the desert," he said. "And, yes, it's hard."

Heck yeah it is. There's nothing in the desert but dried dirt. And a few cacti. Maybe a snake.

It's the place of lowlands and low expectations, when trials stop having an end and take up permanent residence. It's where you give up anything will ever change. You accept that life is simply a disappointment. This is how it turned out and there's nothing to be done about it.

A few days earlier, a friend and I had been talking about my circumstances, all of which I'll spare you. After a discussion on fried apples and leadership principles, the two have connections you know not of, he said something that must be truth because it resonated with me as if my mind had been replaced with a tuning fork and struck against a wall:

Your family, your friends, me...we all wish we could short-circuit this in some way.  To rescue you and to hand you a satchel with all of the answers.  But then, you would not become the person you are supposed to be, the writer who moves multitudes, a woman of destiny.

You mean, all of this pain has a purpose? You sure? I just thought everything kind of sucked right now and that's just life. I figured my path had simply bottomed out in some kind of sinkhole. I'd made a mistake somewhere, chose the wrong toothpaste brand, veered left when I should have pivoted right, signed a two-year contract with Sprint when I should have gone with prepaid Boost.

Whatever I'd done, it was irreversible.

And I bought it. The desert's whole elevator pitch. God, for whatever reason, had chosen to blot me out like a drop of water on Teflon-treated pants. And I don't even own a pair of Teflon-treated pants. Mostly, those are for men.

But God, as God so often does, told me to snap out of it. Lovingly. It went something like, "I'm lovingly telling you to snap out of it."

A few days later, while thinking about how much sun destiny requires, my friend threw the "desert" idea at me. Then he hammered it home. "When God uses someone for His purpose, He'll often take them to the desert first." Like Jesus. Or Moses. John got to know the nightlife on the Island of Patmos pretty well. Abraham became a card-carrying member of the God Relocation Program, too.

Being in a place of life, or even a physical place, where you are completely out of your element, isolated and overwhelmed, over your head and under pressure, is how God gets our attention. Here is where we hear Him best, even when we can’t hear Him at all. This is the moment we trust, when all around us is blistering sand. Now is when we stand still and believe, the most demanding physical strain we may ever endure.

I don’t have this desert living figured out. That Alaska idea was only a week ago. The fact I’ve made it nearly a full seven days without running for the border is progress. Tomorrow I may gaze into the north and sway in that direction. But, for now, today, I’m taking it one moment first. Then another after that. I’m ignoring the hopelessness shimmering on the horizon because hopelessness is a mirage. I’m waiting and trusting and hoping and taking lots of deep breaths.

If you’re there, wondering around the desert, too, let’s meet up when we get out of this place because we will get out. We’ll have a couple of those frozen fruity drinks with umbrellas and compare tan lines.