From Jennifer Kennedy Dean’s Live a Praying Life:

• God wants to do more than we can think or imagine.
• If God only did what we asked Him to do when we asked Him to do it – we would miss the eternal plan that exceeds our imagination. ^{Eph. 3:20}

She gives the example of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. Once Lazarus was dead, they reasoned, Jesus was too late. They had asked all that they could think or imagine.

So, the question is do we want the best we can think of, or the best He can think of?

His will, His time, His way. Amazing how simple and difficult things can be at the same time!

Tim Keller, The Songs of Jesus – The battle to shape our hearts with the truths our minds know is never over.

John Piper says in  Future Grace^{, page 171-181}: The opposite of impatience is not a glib denial of loss. It’s a growing, peaceful willingness to wait for God in the unplanned place of obedience and to walk with God at the unplanned pace of obedience. To wait for God in the unplanned place of obedience and to walk with God at the unplanned pace of obedience, we must believe God is up to something good.  The power comes from faith in truth: In all His dealings with us He is full of compassion ^{Jer. 32:40-41}.  I will not turn away from them, to do them good . . . and I will rejoice over them to do them good . . . with all My heart and with all my soul. He is pursuing us with goodness and mercy all our days ^{Ps. 23:6}.

One day, when I picked Marshall up after school, it was clear he was sad, as soon as he stepped off the bus. When I asked him what was wrong, he started crying. His best friend was moving. He was heartbroken. And even though I knew this was a small heartbreak as heartbreaks go, and that he would make new friends, my heart hurt for him, really hurt. I cried when he wasn’t looking. I wondered if that’s why Jesus cried by Lazarus’ tomb. I wondered if that’s art of what it means when it says, “In all their distress He too was distressed.” ^{Jas. 63:9}  He knows how it’s all going to turn out. He knows He is working for our good and His glory. And He knows it’s hard, and we hurt – and He hurts with us.

He knew in the Garden how it would all turn out. He knew the plan. He understood future joy. He trusted His Father – and yet He was overwhelmed with dread and hoped there was another way. But the things He did know were enough for Him to triumph over the dread. What we know doesn’t allow us to miss the dread, it allows us to triumph over it.

This we know, He is near the brokenhearted ^{Ps. 34:18}.

The above is from a 2016 journal entry as God was preparing me for the grief I saw coming and comforting me in the grief I was experiencing at the sight. He is so faithful!

A new song for me this Easter is Son of Suffering:

How can it be? That there’s a God who weeps; There’s a God who bleeds. Oh, praise the One who would reach for me. Hallelujah to the Son of suffering.

No one imagined a God like this!