When Love Delays

John 11: 6–16

​There are moments in life when love itself becomes a problem, not because love is wrong, but because love places us at risk. Love exposes us, binds us, commits us, and makes us vulnerable to pain. Depending on the circumstances, the people involved, and the nature of the relationship, love can complicate everything. Yet paradoxically, love is also the strongest bond we can form. It is the highest risk in any relationship, but also the deepest and most meaningful connection we can experience. Scripture reminds us again to remember our Creator, the source of love itself, especially when life becomes difficult and confusing.
 
Jesus warned that there would be times when love itself would suffer erosion. In Matthew 24:12, He says that because lawlessness increases, the love of many will grow cold. We are living in days like these, I mean, our news cycles reflect it daily: broken relationships, hardened hearts, indifference toward suffering, and a growing inability to feel deeply for one another. In such a world, love does not disappear suddenly; it cools gradually. That is why remembering our Creator is not sentimental advice; it is a survival practice for the soul.
 
Love, by its very nature, carries urgency; love responds when it is needed most; love moves toward pain, love reassures us that we belong. One of the most painful experiences in human relationships is not rejection, but delay, when love seems to hesitate at the very moment it is most required. Delay feels like absence, silence feels like abandonment, and yet, this is exactly where the story of Lazarus confronts us.
 
Lazarus and his sisters shared a genuine love for Jesus, as Scripture makes explicit: Jesus loved Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, and, astonishingly, still delayed His arrival. Not only that, He chose what seemed like the worst possible moment to act. His explanations sounded illogical to the disciples, almost irresponsible. Yet Jesus openly names the purpose of His delay; what appears as neglect will become revelation, what feels like absence will become miracle. Delay, in the hands of divine love, will not end in loss but in deeper faith.
 
At times, love can feel irrational because it does not always move in straight lines or according to our expectations. Love is rarely unidirectional; it radiates outward and affects everyone within its reach, and just as love has a halo effect that shapes entire communities, hatred does the same, even when we fail to notice it. Still, when actions rooted in love are finally revealed, witnesses rejoice. Love always reveals itself eventually; it never remains hidden forever.
 
This tension reaches a human climax in Thomas, who represents the struggle we all carry when love and logic collide. His skepticism does not come from arrogance, but from a wounded heart, and he voices what others feel but do not dare to say. His response reveals a soul that has been strained by disappointment and fear. Yet Jesus does not reject Thomas, yet He understands better than we do how love must sometimes be shown, not explained, not rushed, but revealed in time.
 
When we look honestly at the current state of human relationships, we see a crisis where love is often handled with excessive pragmatism, Xenophobia, hatred, domination, and exclusion are symptoms of relational breakdown. Love becomes problematic when it is managed like merchandise, measured, priced, negotiated, and withdrawn when inconvenient. Ours is a civilization marked by broken relationships because we have lost the patience and courage required for real love.
 
Healthy love, however, is a sign of emotional and spiritual health cause love reflects our ability to feel, to empathize, to recognize the humanity of others. Relationships are healthier when they are rooted in love rather than control or utility. In contrast, chronic absence of love, especially when it becomes habitual, is not neutrality; it is damage to the soul, and Scripture consistently associates lovelessness with spiritual decay.
 
Our culture often treats love as a transaction, and love becomes an object to exchange, a service to consume, a contract to renegotiate, but in the Kingdom of God, love works differently. I mean, love is covenantal, not transactional; it is given before it is earned, it waits without abandoning, it risks without controlling.
 
This is the power of love: love restores broken souls, love speaks life into darkness, love outlasts death itself. Love has the capacity to transform not only individuals, but entire civilizations, and the story of Lazarus teaches us this hard but holy lesson: sometimes we must learn to wait for love’s full revelation, trusting that God’s delay is not denial. While we wait, we are called to love others as we have been loved, first, freely, and faithfully.