God’s timing is for our benefit

“What do you think the Passover lamb symbolizes?” I asked Noriko during a Bible study on Exodus. After a thoughtful pause, she answered, “Jesus.” I was surprised that she made the link and asked, “In what way?” “Because Jesus died in our place,” Noriko answered without hesitation. After studying the Bible for one and a half years, she seemed to understand the gospel. But that turned out to be our last Bible study.

When we don’t see the fruit

Perhaps your experience is different, but I wonder if you feel that your witness and labour here in Japan seem to bear little fruit.

I have been involved in church planting work in Iwate since 2019, and it has been hard.

I met Noriko in 2020. She was disappointed with Japanese society and was searching for the truth. My team had the joy of reading the Bible with her and seeing the Spirit reveal truths to her. Sadly, her spiritual thirst began to wane after getting married in March 2023. Adjustment to married life and a new part-time job seemed to overwhelm and choke whatever growth had taken place, and she eventually decided not to continue with Bible studies.

In my first year in Iwate, God gave me an opportunity to study the Bible with Rie, a university student. Through various trials, her faith and hunger for God’s Word grew, and we began to prepare for her baptism. One week before the baptism, however, we had to make a difficult decision to postpone because of a particular sin she refused to repent of despite many long conversations with her. She stopped Bible studies and cut off contact.

My team and I prayed and expected God not only to save Rie and Noriko but also to use them to reach their family and friends. The pain and disappointment were even greater because we had witnessed God working powerfully in their lives.

How do we respond when our hopes and expectations are dashed, when the good news seems to fall on deaf ears or is rejected, when people fall away or abandon their faith, or when God doesn’t seem to be working?

How do I respond?

I question God: “Have you not heard my prayers? Do you not care? Why have you not answered? What is the point?” I am tempted to give up. “Is it even true that the labour in the Lord is not in vain? Am I just wasting my life here in Japan?” In moments of discouragement, I doubt the promises of God.

How do we keep persevering? Why do we keep persevering?

The timing of God

Recently, I noticed something profound in John’s account of the raising of Lazarus (John 11). When Lazarus became ill, Martha and Mary sent for Jesus. Jesus did not immediately go to them but stayed where he was for two more days. By the time Jesus arrived, Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days. “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (John 11:32 ESV). These poignant words uttered by Martha and Mary express not only their grief for their brother’s death but disappointment with Jesus. Martha, Mary, and the crowd knew of Jesus’s power to heal. Knowing that Jesus could have saved their brother from dying but had not would have magnified their pain and disappointment even more. I wonder if they grappled with similar questions: “Did you not hear? Do you not care? Why did you not answer?”

John’s narrative seems to address these heart questions: “Jesus wept” (John 11:35).

In recounting Jesus’s response when he saw Mary weeping and Lazarus’s tomb, John makes it clear that Jesus cared. But there is still more in this passage for us to pay attention to: “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was” (John 11:5–6).

I had never noticed in the past, but here John says the reason that Jesus did not go to them immediately was precisely because he loved them. In his divine wisdom and love, Jesus permitted Lazarus to die so that God’s power and glory would be displayed with even greater splendour. Even though it was painful for Jesus, he withheld granting their requests so that they would see and believe that he was the Messiah who could raise the dead.

When things are hard, we want Jesus to come immediately and fix our problems, but in love, Jesus sees beyond our immediate pain and needs to our eternal good and God’s glory.

“God is willing and able but has chosen not to act right now,” my mentor once said to me when talking about unanswered prayers. These words are worth pondering.

Ponder, for example, God’s work of redemption from creation to Jesus, which spanned over 4,000 years, including 400 years of silence. Was God idle? No. He was waiting for the fullness of time to reveal his wondrous salvation, which he had planned before the creation of the world to be displayed in glorious beauty—the birth, life, and death of his precious son, Jesus. God’s work cannot be rushed. The deep and lasting work of new creation and the redemption and restoration of sinful and broken people take time. Jesus was confident that God continues to be at work (John 5:17). So should we.

I have killed many plants in the past. When I noticed that my succulents looked sickly, I asked a florist for advice. “You’re giving them too much water. Only water them when the soil feels dry and the lower leaves begin to wilt,” he said. When you overwater succulents, they grow too quickly, becoming lanky and feeble. It is no different with our faith.

How can we learn to wait and hope in the Lord when our requests are quickly met? How can we learn to base our faith not on sight but on God’s Word when prayers are swiftly answered? How can we learn to trust when the future is already known?

When prayers seem to be unanswered or when God doesn’t seem to be working, I am learning to ask him, “How are you working in this season of waiting? How are you growing me? How are you working in others?” I am learning to trust in his beautiful timing. And this gives me hope.

Today, I am studying the Bible with a single mum whose hunger for God’s Word is growing. I am learning to persevere in sowing the seeds of the gospel with faith because I know that God is working and he cares.