When Walls of Faith Hold Us Back

FB Smit shares how through a personal struggle, God gave her new understanding about a familiar Scripture passage.  

Distraught sisters Martha and Mary pace beside their brother, Lazarus, who is on his deathbed. While they knew Jesus was staying a distance away, the sisters are desperate. They send urgent word for Him to come quickly to heal Lazarus. 

If there were ever a 9-1-1 emergency, this is it. 

Now, Jesus loved Lazarus, but instead of coming with sirens blaring, “he remained for two days in the place where he was” (John 11:6).

Sometimes the Lord doesn’t appear when we need Him the most. It appears as though our emergencies are not His.

Bringing our own emergency to God 

I recall my own urgent request; though not life-and-death, as a yet-to-ripen Christian, it certainly felt so at the time. My husband and I poured out our prayers for our daughter, Anne — what to do, how to do it for her. For weeks, for months, we sought an answer, a solution, for the Lord to come to our aid with blaring sirens before the deadline. 

Looking back, our monumental ask was the first time we really prayed the knee-numbing, hands-raising kind. We even tried the novel-to-us concept of Adoration. If He didn’t appear in our time of desperation, we would go to Him, front and center, face to face. 

At the same time, our home church, Saint Brigid, was having a capital campaign for a new church building. The promise of no longer having to attend Mass in the school gym delighted everyone. One night, a capital campaign officer called me, asking for a donation for the beautiful, future church. New to Church life, new to church builds, I was shocked into a stammer when the caller point-blank stated, “We are asking your family for $$$$.” 

Gulp. “Uhhhh …” Are you kidding me? 

I barely heard anything else he said, because I was busy looking up at the ceiling light fixtures, wondering where the candid cameras and bugging devices were. The dollar amount sounded suspiciously close to the bonus amount my husband had just received at work.  Was I being pranked? 

When I got off the phone, my husband had just walked out of the bedroom to head to Adoration. In our desperate state, we pleaded regularly for Jesus’ help. I was staying home to get our kids ready for bed. 

As he left, I mentioned to him in passing, “By the way, the building campaign people called asking for a donation of $$$$. Can you believe it? At Adoration, want to ask about that?” 

When my husband gets back home, I’m eagerly waiting for God’s guidance regarding our daughter. 

Instead, he says, “We should donate the $$$$.” 

“What?? You’re joking. But what about Anne?” I asked. 

“Nada. No answer,” he replied. 

We didn't get the answer we expected when we expected it

In my logical, first-in-first-out mind, the first ask should yield an answer before the others, especially a desperate plea like ours. We had been asking for the longest time about our child, and it was the first and only time we had posed a question about a donation. 

From my limited experience, there should be a long drought before God’s response. How can ONE prayer yield an immediate response and for the other, nothing? 

I normally raise an eyebrow at my husband’s discernments, but the amount matching his bonus amount at the exact time he received it seemed too much of a coincidence. 

Jesus decided to show up after Lazarus is good and dead. When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days (John 11:7). 

In the end, the deadline came and went with no help for our daughter. 

Both Mary and Martha lamented, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (John 11:21;  John 11:32). 

After we sat in shock, we dusted ourselves off, wrote off Adoration, and knee-skinning prayers, and decided to take the matter into our own hands. 

At this point, Christ asked Mary and Martha to take Him to the place where Lazarus is buried. When they get there, Jesus said to take away the stone of the tomb (John 11:39). 

As we took control to manhandle the matter, God changed a situation that felt done and settled and turned it on its head. 

Jesus called to Lazarus and the dead man walked out of the tomb, alive and well. (John 11:44) 

After the deadline had passed and hope had slipped away, Jesus changed the outcome: He opened a door that was slammed shut. 

We walked through its threshold to a more enlivened, ripened faith.  

The walls of our faith boxes

We all carry faith boxes — some big, others small. They are self-contained with limits, with walls. Sometimes we like our walls because they keep us comfortable and our lives predictable; knowing the first-in-first-out assembly line triages a predictable pattern, and where the seams meet exactly feels reliable and in control. 

Had God not waited for the natural course of events to take place, we wouldn’t have seen the plain truth of our faith-box dimensions. By allowing the so-called deadline of our prayers to come and go, God showed us the exact dimensions of our faith walls.   

“Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?” (John 11:40) 

When we get comfortable with where our limits are, where our seams meet, that human deadlines and limitations are God’s as well, that there is too little or too late, Jesus, in His own time, takes our faith boxes — the limits and walls of our trust and belief — and knocks them down, demolition style. 

He extends them in breathtaking — see the glory of God — ways. 

Our faith is limited. God is unlimited. And that seems to be the point.  

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