God’s Glory Isn’t Always Comfortable

“Jesus said, ‘Take away the stone.’ Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, ‘Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days’” – John 11:39
 
Sometimes we pray for miracles but resist the process they come through. We ask God to move in power, but then we flinch when He starts peeling back the layers we tried to keep buried. It is easy to want resurrection without the discomfort of rolling away the stone. But real transformation often comes with tension.
 
When Jesus stood at Lazarus’ tomb, His first instruction was simple but strange. Move the stone. Let the stench out. Open what everyone else was trying to seal shut. Martha hesitated, not because she didn’t love her brother, but because what lay behind that stone was decaying. It did not seem like the kind of place where God’s glory would show up.
 
That is the same kind of resistance we often carry. We want the breakthrough, but we do not want the mess that comes with it. We ask for healing, but we do not want to revisit the wound. We long for freedom, but we hesitate to confess the chains. And when Jesus starts moving toward the places we’ve closed off, we start backing up, just like Martha did.
 
But this is what we learn in John 11. God’s glory is not just about beauty; it is about power. It is about resurrection power that steps into dark, broken, rotting places and brings life where there was none. And sometimes the thing that smells the worst is the very thing God is about to use to show you His glory.
 
If you are in a season where God is asking you to trust Him with something buried, it might not feel spiritual. It might feel awkward, hard, or even offensive to your logic. But if Jesus is standing in front of it, asking you to open the way, you can be sure that what follows is not decay. What follows is life. Let Him roll the stone away. He already knows what is behind it, and He is not afraid of the mess.