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Viewpoint from Dave Weeks 13/02/2015
 Dave Weeks
Pastor, Hope Church, Great Yarmouth
as published in the Yarmouth Mercury
Martin Luther King was well known for his 'I have a dream...' speech. Do you have a dream? Are there things in your life which you are waiting to see come to pass? Has God promised you something which has yet to be realised? Is it your desire to see your church bursting at the seams with people praising God? Are you praying for the sick but not seeing them healed? Are your children not walking with God at the moment? Are things not working out for you in accordance with your timetable?
 In the Bible we read the account of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. Jesus was elsewhere when He received the news of his sickness. Interestingly, Jesus didn't go up to Bethany straight away, but went up later, by which time Lazarus had died and had been in a tomb for four days. When Jesus did arrive, Martha, Lazarus' sister, who was very familiar with Jesus’ ability to heal the sick, said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. BUT EVEN NOW I know whatever You ask of God, God will give you ” From there, they went to the tomb. Jesus gave orders to move the stone sealing the tomb, after which He calls out “Lazarus, come forth!” at which point he came back to life and came out of the tomb!
Martha had hoped for a miracle of healing, but in the end she got a resurrection! Her initial hopes had been dashed when her brother died, but Jesus’ delay in coming to Bethel meant she ultimately received a far greater miracle! Not only that. Because it ended up being an amazing miracle, the whole countryside heard about it and many people turned and followed Jesus! Great glory came to God
 The question I asked at the beginning, effectively, was are there hopes in your life which seemed to have died, or not happened in accordance with your hoped for timetable? Delay does not mean your dream has died. It could mean that God still wants to fulfil His promises to you, and for you to realise your dreams, but in a greater way than you could possibly imagine! You may be hoping for a 'healing', but maybe Jesus wants to give you a 'resurrection'!
I, personally, have many things that I believe God has put in my heart that He wants to do in my life, but have not yet been fully realised, but I am believing by faith that it will all surely come to pass. As it says in Hebrews 10 verse 35 'So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded'. And in Philippians 1 verse 6 'being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ”
So, my encouragement to you, is to be like Martha and, although it may seem against all the odds, believe that EVEN NOW God can fulfil your desires and see if He doesn't do something even greater than you were hoping for!
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