The 4th Day...when Hope seems Lost

“Have you ever prayed for something so long that eventually you just stopped believing it could happen?

And eventually you started grieving something that was still technically alive.

I think that’s where a lot of us are.

We’re standing in front of dreams, relationships, identities, healing, purpose… and saying,
‘God, if You were here sooner, maybe this wouldn’t have died.’”

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, friends. Welcome back to this week's episode of We're Dealing Where Life and Faith Get Messy. My name is Dawn Marie, and I'm so glad that you're here with me today. So this is a place where we talk about real life, real struggles, real healing, and real faith. It's a place where we stop pretending that everything is okay, and instead we learn how to walk honestly with God through our grief, our disappointment, our confusion, our trauma, our healing, our hope, and all of the messy places in the middle in between. Sometimes the place in the middle is the hardest place to be. It's confusing and it's scary. And today's conversation is deeply personal because I think that a lot of people are tired. And I don't mean physically tired, I mean soul tired. I've found myself here many times in life. It's the kind of tired that comes from carrying disappointment for too long. The kind of tired that comes from surviving instead of living. It's the kind of tired that comes when you've prayed and you've believed and you've hoped and you've waited, and now you're quietly wondering if maybe it's just too late. Maybe there's too much damage. Maybe there's too much heartbreak, too much silence from God, too much loss, and too much disappointment. And that is a lot of too much to carry. Maybe today you feel like something in your life has died. Maybe it's a relationship. Maybe it's your joy. Maybe it's your confidence, and maybe even your purpose. And maybe your faith feels weaker than it ever has before. Maybe you're grieving a version of yourself that you lost while you were surviving hard things. I know sometimes you can look back on your life at the person that you were before the heartache, before the trauma, before the betrayal and the rejection, and you just want to get back to that person. Honestly, I think one of the hardest things in life is not the sudden loss. It's the slow loss. It's watching something in your life slowly fade away, slowly break down, slowly drift apart, and slowly you lose life. Because when something dies suddenly, there's a shock. But when something dies slowly, there's grief mixed with exhaustion. You're so tired because you've been carrying that for so many years. And I think a lot of people listening today are grieving things that did not die overnight. Maybe your confidence died after years of criticism. Maybe your joy slowly faded away after surviving years of trauma. And maybe your faith weakened after disappointment after disappointment after disappointment. And during that time you have wondered, where is God? Maybe your dream didn't fail overnight, but maybe life slowly buried it under survival mode. And eventually you stopped expecting God to resurrect those things. And it's not because you stopped loving God, it's because life happened and life continues to happen. The heartbreak happened, the betrayal happened, the silence and the exhaustion happened. And eventually you start grieving something that was technically still alive. You just couldn't see it. I think that's where a lot of people are alive physically, but emotionally exhausted, spiritually numb, mentally overwhelmed, and relationally disconnected. And I know if I'm honest, I find myself there sometimes. Maybe you're standing in front of a dream, a relationship, a prayer, a calling, or a version of yourself quietly saying, God, if you were here sooner, maybe this would not have died. But today, I want to remind someone that God is still in the resurrection business. And that is not just for the stories in the Bible. It's for right now, today, in real lives, in real pain, and in real impossible situations. Maybe what looks dead to you is not dead to God. I want to talk about a story in the Bible that I love. And it's found in John chapter 11. And it's the story of when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. So Lazarus is sick. Mary and Martha, his sisters, send word to Jesus saying, Lord, the one that you love is sick. This deeply mattered because the Bible specifically says that Jesus loved them. Jesus was friends with them. They were in his inner circle. They were not people that he just knew from a distance. I love that. I love that that it says that Jesus loved them. When Jesus heard that Lazarus was sick, he waited. And I want to paint the picture here. It says in John 11, 5, 6, now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days. Like, could you even imagine the audacity of Jesus, right? So they come to him and they say, Jesus, your friend Lazarus, who you love, is sick, and I know that you can heal him. Will you please come? And he stays two more days. And honestly, that verse is hard. It's a hard pill to swallow. Because we often believe if God loves me, he'll stop the pain quickly. If God loves me, he'll answer immediately. And if God cares, he won't let this fall apart. I have to imagine what they were feeling. Like, can you imagine like Jesus for real? Because waiting can feel confusion. Waiting can feel like abandonment, especially when your heart is breaking. So I want to talk about what fourth-day seasons look like in real life, and then we'll go back to the story. Because Jesus resurrected him on the fourth day. And you know what fourth-day seasons sometimes look like in real life. It looks like staring at your phone, hoping that someone calls, someone that you love, someone that you want to have a relationship with, someone that you're trying to reconcile with and they never do. It looks like praying for reconciliation while communication slowly disappears. It looks like you're sitting in your car and you're crying because you have to help everybody else while you're privately falling apart. It looks like smiling public while internally wondering if God has forgotten about you. It looks like functioning externally while inside you are grieving. And sometimes nobody even knows you're in a graveyard season because you still show up. You still go to work, you still serve, you still encourage people, you still post hopeful things, but internally something feels buried. Sometimes fourth day seasons look like the dream you stopped talking about. You thought that thing was dead, gone, and buried. The thing that you once prayed for constantly now barely gets mentioned because you've been disappointed and hurt so much. Maybe at one point you believed, I'm gonna start that ministry, I'm gonna write that book, I'm gonna find healthy love, I'm gonna feel joy again, and I'm gonna be healed. But life happened, the bills happened, fear happens, trauma, rejection, and delays truly happen. And eventually survival mode gets louder than hope. Adulthood will do that to people. Adulting is hard. We start out hopeful as a child. We are dreamers and we expect good things. And then life hits the heartbreak, the trauma, the loss, the burnout, the abandonment, the addiction, the grief, the disappointment, the church hurt, all of those things. And if we're not careful, pain will slowly convince you to stop expecting the resurrection. Lord, if you had just been here. So let's go back to the story. When Jesus finally arrives, Lazarus has already died. Martha says something heartbreaking. Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. And honestly, most of us have said the exact same thing to God in many different ways. God, if you had just intervened sooner, if you had answered me sooner, if you had protected me sooner, if you had healed me sooner, if you had, if you had, if you had. And maybe you didn't say it out loud, but your heart certainly felt it. And what I love is that Jesus never rebuked them. He never rebuked her honesty. He didn't shame her grief. And somebody needs to hear that. That God is not intimidated by your disappointment and he is not afraid of your questions. You can trust him and still wrestle emotionally. Boy, I do that a lot. You can still love him and still feel confused, and you can have faith and you can cry yourself a river because even Jesus wept. Here's where the story becomes incredibly powerful. And I love this. Lazarus wasn't dead for just a few hours. He had been dead for four days. So there was a belief back then, a Jewish belief, that many believed and held to. And it was that your spirit would linger in your body for about three days, which meant that you could come back to life during those three days, right? They hoped that you would just wake up. And so Jesus had to wait until the fourth day. That's why that fourth day season that we just talked about is so significant. He had to wait. There was one point in the story where he said to the sisters that if you only believe that you will see the glory of God. Now, in that moment, that did not make sense to them. But as we continue in the story, Jesus healed Lazarus, raised Lazarus from the dead on the fourth day. So by the fourth day, his body was decomposed. His body was dead, dead. There was no more spirit. They didn't believe that he could come back. He was gone. It was beyond hope and it was beyond repair. And Martha says, Lord, by this time there is a bad odor, right? So Jesus comes and he says, open the tomb. And they're like, Are you crazy? He's dead, dead. He's gonna smell, he's gonna stink. Jesus, it's too late now. And many people feel like that is their life. They feel like emotionally and spiritually that that thing is dead, dead. The marriage is too broken, the addiction has gone too far. The trauma has changed me too much, and I'll never be that person again. My faith feels dead, my joy feels dead, and my purpose certainly feels dead. And maybe disappointment has convinced you to lower your expectations. Maybe you've stopped praying boldly because you are afraid of being hurt again. I know sometimes I find myself there. Jesus intentionally waited, and not because he didn't care, and not because he ignored them, but because he was about to reveal that the resurrection power works best in places that humans have given up on. When you think that that thing is dead, dead, that is the exact place where Jesus can come in and show up on the scene. And if you only believe, you will see the glory of God. I love that verse because Jesus didn't say if you understand everything. He did not say if you never struggle, and he didn't say if you never doubt. He just said if you believe. Honestly, sometimes belief is very messy. Sometimes belief looks like crying while you're praying because you don't understand. It looks like, God, I don't understand. I'm exhausted and I'm scared. But somewhere deep down, I still believe you are who you say you are. And maybe faith isn't always loud confidence. Maybe sometimes faith is barely hanging on. How many find yourselves where you're barely hanging on? But hold on to God. This is what preaches deeply into real life. The miracle wasn't just that Lazarus was raised. The miracle was Jesus walked into a hopeless situation and he proved that he still had authority. Because sometimes marriages feel dead, purpose feels dead, joy feels dead, all these things we talked about. Your faith feels dead, your confidence feels dead, hope feels dead. How do you hope again after so much trauma? Your healing feels delayed and your prayers feel unanswered. And sometimes we don't even need resurrection physically. We sometimes need resurrection emotionally, spiritually, mentally, and relational. Sometimes people are physically alive, but emotionally they are buried, still breathing, but spiritually exhausted, still functioning but internally numb. Maybe that's why this matters so deeply, because Jesus still walks into hopeless places and he says, I still have authority here. I love that. Authority over fear and addiction and trauma, authority over hopelessness, authority over shame and depression, and authority over the parts of your life that you tried to bury. I think that sometimes people adapt to dead places. We get so used to disappointment that we stop expecting joy. We get so used to survival mode that peace somehow seems unfamiliar. And we get so used to heartbreak that vulnerability feels dangerous. Eventually, we build these emotional homes in graveyards, the graveyard of old dreams, the graveyard of relationships, the graveyard of who we used to be, and we quietly decide I guess this is just who I am. But what if God never intended for you to stay in the graveyard? What if he came to call you out of it? I love when they talk about the grave clothes because Jesus said, Come out, and Lazarus walks out alive, but he is still wrapped in those old grave clothes. That is a picture of so many of us. So many. We're alive, but we're still wearing what death puts on us. We're still wrapped in shame and fear and trauma, survival mode, addiction, self-hatred, rejection, insecurity. But Jesus says, take off the grave clothes and let him go. That part is so powerful because sometimes people survive trauma, but they still wear the shame of it. You've survived heartbreak, but you still believe that you are unlovable. You've survived that addiction, but you still identify as an addict and broken. And God is saying that you don't have to keep wearing what almost killed you. And maybe resurrection in real life doesn't always look dramatic at first. Maybe resurrection looks like getting out of bed, laughing again, learning to trust again, go to therapy, open your Bible, dream again after the heartbreak, apply for that job, set boundaries for yourself, letting people love you after betrayal. Sometimes resurrection starts quietly. Sometimes it begins as a tiny spark of hope in a place that felt emotionally dead. Maybe that tiny spark is where God begins rebuilding your life. Imagine that. Maybe that tiny spark is where God begins rebuilding your life. So today, this is your reminder. God is still in the resurrection business. I promise you, He is. He still restores, He still heals, He still revives and He still renews, He still breathes life into impossible situations. And maybe your story is not ending in the graveyard. Maybe this painful season is simply the place where God will reveal his glory. Did I not tell you that if you only believe, you will see the glory of God? Not if you understand, not if you never struggle, not if you never cry, if you believe, even trembling, believe. Even when you're exhausted, believe. Even when life is messy, believe. And maybe today that tiny spark of belief is just enough for God to begin resurrecting the parts of your life that you thought were gone forever. Imagine that. All of those things that you hoped and you dreamed for for your life. Maybe somewhere they're still there. And it's just that tiny spark that God shows up and it will ignite a fire, and He will start to resurrect the parts of your life that you thought were gone forever. Thank you guys so much for being here today. I thank you for showing up. Thank you for being willing to do the hard work of healing and trusting, grieving, hoping, and believing again. If this episode encouraged you, I want you to just send it to somebody walking through a fourth-day season right now. And I want you to remember that pretending life, pretending that everything is okay, is not okay. We're not pretending, we're dealing together. And even in the graveyard seasons, God is still in the resurrection business. I love that. I thank you so much for being here, and I'll see you next week on We're Dealing.