What About Her?

John 21:18-23

18 Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go." 19 (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) And after saying this he said to him, "Follow me." 20 Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them, the one who had been reclining at table close to him and had said, "Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?" 21 When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, "Lord, what about this man?" 22 Jesus said to him, "If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!" 23 So the saying spread abroad among the brothers that this disciple was not to die; yet Jesus did not say to him that he was not to die, but, "If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?"

Jesus and Peter had a moment together. This is after Jesus died and rose again. After Peter denied Jesus and was received and restored by Jesus. Jesus gives Peter a glimpse of what his life was going to be like, that he would die as a martyr. Jesus immediately wants to know, what about John? That is our nature. If God speaks to me that I should sell my house and give the money away, I want to know if he is going to tell some other people to do that too. We want it to be the same for everyone. And, if God does not do the same thing, we want to have a reason why.

God has His plan for us; He also has plans for our Christian friends and associates. How He works in their lives is His business. Our business is to just follow Him as He leads us.

Jerehiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

I have to learn to be content with the plans that God has for ME, and not be concerned about the plans that he has for YOU. That is both in a negative sense as well as a positive sense. We have to learn to just trust that God’s plans are good, His ways are good, and that we don’t always understand.

We want a formula. We want to know that if we do this, God will do that. We would like to think that we have some guarantees with God. Of course, we have some, but not all that we want. We can know for sure that when we believe in Jesus, allow him to be our savior and our Lord, our sins are forgiven and we are saved from their penalty. We also know that Jesus is living in us, he is working in us, and someday we will live in heaven with him. That is certain for every one of us.

Those are the things that we can be sure of, that we know are certain. But, there are many other things that we would like to know. We would like to think that if we pray for one person and they are healed, that it would work like that every time. When we hear a testimony about God’s work in someone’s life, I want it to be that God would do the same thing in my life in the same situation.

Christians want a formula that we can follow. For example, we want to know how to pray for healing. We may go through several steps:

I pray, God heals.

If that doesn’t work, we want a solution, so we try different things.

I pray with faith, God heals.

I pray with enough faith, God heals.

I pray with enough faith and deal with any sin in my life, God heals.

I pray with enough faith and deal with any sin in my life and get other Christians to pray, God heals.

I pray with enough faith and deal with any sin in my life and get other Christians who also have enough faith to pray, God heals.

It is so hard for us to not always look for these solutions.

“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?" Rom 11:33-35

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. Isa 55:8-9

If we pray for healing, and God does not heal, I believe that it is right to go to God and ask if there is a reason. That is not wrong, but we have to learn that ultimately, God is God and we cannot understand everything He does. Whether we pray for healing, for financial needs, for friendships, to have a husband, for a new job, whatever the need is, we have to have peace to know that God is still God. He is in control. We don’t make God do anything. There are no formulas in place to make God act in a certain way. What one person does is not the formula for everyone else. If I sit in a certain chair every day and pray, and God gives me what I was asking for, that does not mean that you need to find a similar chair to sit in every day and pray. Whatever formula that you think worked, is not the answer at all. God loves us, each one of us individually. He deals with us individually, in the way that He knows is best for us.