John 11.4 “This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”
As always, Jesus sees more to the situation than anyone else. He sees that Lazarus died for the glory of God, just like the storm came up in the middle of the night while the disciples were alone in the boat, and the little girl died, and all the people got hungry, and the bride and groom ran out of wine.
“For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.
For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.” (Rom 14:7-9 NIV)
This is where I get into that confusing zone of God’s sovereignty. How many things does God allow to happen and how many things does He MAKE happen. I have no idea, but the fact remains that everything we do is not just for ourselves and does not just concern ourselves. We live to the Lord and we die to the Lord. I know many times that I have been distracted during my Bible study time, only to meet some event in the day that I should have been spiritually prepared for and wasn’t. I know many other times that whatever great Bible study I had / or prayer time, or whatever time with God was a direct prep and teach time for the thing that happened during the day.
(Or the next several days. I was memorizing James 1 days before we flew across the Atlantic on an 8 hour flight and David was about 14 months old and threw up for the last 6 of those hours. It was quite a trial, and all I could think about was “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.”)
So Lazarus didn’t MEAN to get sick and die, but it happened for God’s glory. I don’t want to say that God made it happen, because that takes me into areas that I just don’t have evidence to make a conclusion about. But either way, like so many other things, Jesus turned a circumstance into an arrow to God’s glory.
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.”
(Is 6:3 NIV)
If the whole EARTH is full of His glory, how much more so would be every event, circumstance, situation. May God give us eyes to see that in the midst of our daily activities!