The Greatest Promise

On Saturday as I sat with my family at my mothers house, I received a phone call regarding another family. This family was all gathered together too, only they were now missing one for the first time. Their loved one had just left this world and traveled beyond their sight, beyond their comprehension, but never far from their hearts. I know without a doubt, the Lord smiled as He received His humble, servant Home. They will never be separated again by sin or by the things of this world. They will always be together, but his family has been left behind.

Two weeks ago, I was driving home from my ladies bible study and I felt the Spirit compelling me to just cry out for healing for their loved one. I was praying at the top of my lungs, my eyes were filled with tears and my heart was pounding as I begged God to give them the miracle they longed for. It was so powerful that I truly expected the phone to ring or to check my email and hear that their father was sitting up in bed with a huge smile on his face, watching his family sit at his feet. I expected that, just from feeling the Spirit in my car through prayer. As I talked about a few days go (see Do You Believe?) that we are to pray expecting an answer, pray believing that He will answer and I did.

Well, I never got that phone call or that email and he never sat up again to bathe in the presence of his loved ones, until that last moment. His family was all there gathered around him and as he stood in the twilight of this world filled with the flesh and the spiritual realms, I know he saw them and smiled that huge smile. I know that they were surrounded by angels in that room as he went Home.

I can remember my Gramma dying the same way. We were all there, gathered around her bed, rubbing on her arms and telling her just how precious she was. I really believe that she stood there in that room watching us, if just for a moment before she went on. I can only pray that when my time comes that I should be so lucky. What a blessing and a joy it must be, to be surrounded by those of this world who love you the most and by the angels of the Lord, all at the same time!

But, I must ask, why didn't God answer my prayer and the prayers of so many? Was He toying with us, making sport of us? I am telling you, I really believed this man would get well again, and he didn't. What does that mean? Was it even worth muttering those prayerful words if He wasn't going to answer?

My how earthly our perspective is, yet He's not on this earth or even of this world. He sees the whole picture, while we can only see the moment we are in. As God told Isaiah, "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways." (55:8) I don't know why things turned out the way they did, but I do know that God does. He did fulfill a promise of healing on Saturday, though it was not in the way we would have chosen. He also fulfilled the greatest promise He ever made. Jesus promised that, "In My Father's house there are many rooms: if it were not so I wouldn't have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am." (John 14:2-3)

Ahh, blessed assurance, Jesus is mine! I know He received His humble, servant and child Home to be with Him so that they may never be apart again.

As for that wonderful family who has been left behind, I believe Isaiah when He says that "He tends His flock like a shepherd; He gathers the lambs in His arms and carries them close to His heart; He gently leads those that have young." (40:11) I pray they will feel His arms as He carries them with a heavenly strength that is not their own. And we will continue to wait in anticipation to see what wonders He will do in the midst of our humanly heartache.