To obey or not to obey—that’s the question we face continually in our Christian walk. Some days it’s easy to comply, but other days it feels all but impossible. Especially when God asks us to do something that doesn’t make sense to us.
Like opening our tombs by choosing to forgive.
For many of us, our tombstones and spiritual blockages result from what has been done to us—and our attitudes about it. We’ve been hurt. We’ve been falsely accused or misunderstood, misused or betrayed. And we can’t seem to get past our anger, resentment, or bitterness.
We want to forgive—well, most of the time. Trouble is, we aren’t sure we can forgive. The hurt has gone so deep that the tendrils of our pain seem to go on forever. How do you let go of something that has such a hold on you?
That was my dilemma several years ago. “I have to get alone with God,” I told my husband, John. “I’m in a very bad place.”
We’d walked through a trying time in ministry and, for the most part, I’d handled it pretty well. A space of grace had opened up for me to walk through the difficulty without feeling the intense need to fix it or change the people involved. Opportunities for self-pity had floated through my mind before, but up to that point I hadn’t indulged them. Instead, I’d been experiencing the also-miraculous phenomenon of a disciplined mind.
I’d learned that just because a painful recollection came to memory, I didn’t have to embrace it—a revolutionary discovery, let me tell you. Instead of nursing and rehearsing the past, with the Holy Spirit’s help, I was learning to disperse it, refusing the offense entrance to my heart and, more important, denying it occupancy in my mind.
But somewhere near the anniversary of the hurt, I began to nurse a grudge against someone in the situation. Pain-laced memories began to stick in my craw and bother me anew as the darkness of resentment casts it shadow over my heart.
After experiencing so much victory in my thinking, I grew a bit careless. A particularly painful memory slipped in through a side entrance of my mind. At first it was so tiny I hardly noticed it. But as I allowed my hurt a platform to state its woes, it began to grow, and a boulder of unforgiveness began to move across my soul.
Finally the chill of bitterness sank in so deep I couldn’t even find the “want to” to forgive. That terrified me. With John’s blessing, I holed up in a friend’s cabin and poured out my heart before the Lord. It was slow going at first. My emotions were rock hard, but as I hammered out obedience to forgiveness, things began to change.
At the Spirit’s prompting, I wrote a letter to the person who had hurt me. I didn’t measure my words; I just spilled out my pain. I knew I had to get honest before God about what I was feeling in order for the infection to drain from my heart.
Other letters followed, but not one would be postmarked. I wasn’t writing them for anyone but me. My friends may not have felt the stranglehold of my judgment, but I certainly had. Finally, I wrote a letter to God, relinquishing all rights to resentment and asking Him to bless the people involved.
I was absolutely exhausted when I penned the last note. But with the exhaustion came the beginning of a sweet sense of release.
For in the mind-over-emotion choice to forgive, my stone of unforgiveness started to move. And somewhere in the letting go of those who had hurt me, I walked out free.
That’s an excerpt from Joanna Weaver’s book, Lazarus Awakening: Finding Your Place in the Heart of God. Her new companion DVD Bible study releases on July 21, 2015. In the teaching sessions filmed in Israel, Joanna explores the halfway life too many of settle for, even as Christians. With the Holy Spirit’s help, we can step out of our tombs and shed the graveclothes that often bind us.
“We all have stones that need to be rolled away in order to experience the abundant life Jesus came to give,” Joanna says. “I’m so glad the Holy Spirit is there to help us. We simply have to ask, then cooperate with His grace to release people from our unforgiveness and judgment. For as we do, we’ll be released as well!”
Response Questions:
- Is there an area of unforgiveness in your life that God is dealing with? What do you sense He wants you to do?
- What has helped you truly forgive in the past?
- In your first book, Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World, you began teaching about Mary, Martha, and Lazarus 15 years ago. What has held your interest for so long about the three siblings from Bethany?
Well, to be honest, I never dreamed there would be three books! I thought I was done after the first one. Then the second one…and the third! I was all ready to write a completely different book when I was offered the chance to do the companion DVD Bible studies for the books. Lazarus Awakening is the final study of the series and “comes forth!” July 21st.
Though I look forward to writing on a different topic, I never get tired of talking about Mary and Martha and Lazarus. God continues to make their story fresh and alive to me. Just the other day I had an a-ha moment that blessed my heart. (Wish I could remember it because it was really good! J)
- A main topic in Lazarus Awakening is living resurrected as Christians – shedding our graveclothes to live fully in our lives with Christ. What are some things that you think hold us back from living fully in our faith?
I’m not sure how it is for other people, but one of the things that consistently held me back as a young Christian was a sense of hopelessness at how far I still had to go. I expected a magic-wand transformation when I was saved – that somehow holiness would just happen to me and I’d suddenly be all I needed to be. More like Jesus and less like me!
But one of the most valuable things I’ve learned is that sanctification is a process. I don’t suddenly become like Jesus overnight – instead I am becoming like Him! And best of all, it’s not all up to me!
Just as Jesus called Lazarus out of his tomb, He’s calling us to leave our halfway living behind and the graveclothe patterns that keep tripping us up, so that, with the Holy Spirit’s help, we can learn how to walk and live truly free.
Another thing that holds many of us back is the enemy’s lie that we’re hopeless and helpless – that true transformation can never be ours on earth. But, he is a liar! The same power that raised Jesus from the dead dwells in us, and that means resurrection life isn’t just for heaven. Jesus wants to make us fully alive, right here and right now!
- You write, “If we embrace the process of crucifying our flesh, we’ll find the joy that Lazarus found.” Can you elaborate on what you mean by that?
As you study the New Testament, Christianity really comes down to this: are we willing to “lose” our lives in order to “find” them (Matthew 16:25)? Are we willing to die to self so that Jesus can live in us? I’m afraid that many of us spend our lives walking down the Via Dolorosa, but never allow ourselves to reach Golgotha. But that isn’t what Jesus had in mind when He said, “Follow me.”
I love what Major Ian Thomas says about this necessary crucifixion:
“Willingness to die is the price you must pay if you want to be raised from the dead to live and work and walk in the power of the third morning. Once the willingness to die is there for us, there are no more issues to face, only instructions to obey.”11
Imagine the freedom Lazarus must have felt when he came to the end of himself – literally! After facing humanity’s greatest fear – death – he found Jesus waiting for him there. I’m asking the Lord to help me come to the end of myself so that I can find that kind of freedom. Freedom from fear of man or fear of failure…freedom from fear of any kind! What a joyful, overcoming life that would be.
- This new Lazarus Awakening DVD Study was filmed in Israel. What was it like to visit Bethany, the home of Mary and Martha and Lazarus? And why did you decide to film the curriculum there?
After thirty years of ministry, my husband John and I took our first trip to Israel a few years ago. It was incredible to say the least! We spent our first day in Bethany. After so many years of writing, speaking and thinking about Mary, Martha and Lazarus, to actually be in the spot – or very near the spot – where they’d lived brought tears to my eyes.
I had come to the Holy Land fully expecting to see the two sisters everywhere I went. But instead, it was Lazarus that I encountered over and over. Spiritual correlations and teaching points filled my heart as we toured different locations. By the time we came home, I couldn’t imagine filming Lazarus Awakening any other place.
I’m so grateful that WaterBrook Press agreed and made it possible to film in Israel. I sensed a special anointing as we worked on the project, and I’m praying it blesses those who watch it.
Note: For a behind-the-scene peak at “Filming Lazarus,” I’ll be blogging about it June 11-21st over at my website.
You can learn more about Joanna Weaver, her books and DVD studies at her
website. The new companion DVD Bible study for
Lazarus Awakening: Finding Your Place in the Heart of God releases on July 21, 2015.
“There’s no tomb so deep or so dark that Jesus cannot open,” Joanna says. “We were made for resurrection life – a heart-pumping, deep-breathing, feet-running vitality that only comes from Jesus Christ.”
Optional Response Questions:
- What types of graveclothe patterns have you struggled with at times?
- In what ways do you sense God calling you out of your tomb and into new life?
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