Sometimes following Jesus is like a rainy day on a vacation.
Let me explain.
We all know that FAITH is believing in something that we can't see, and yet most Christians I know are constantly looking for signs or confirmation about things. Even the most certain of Jesus followers will find a need for confirmation at some point. We want to know that we are right. We want to know that God's real. We want to know that He hears us. That He cares. That there's really a plan.
And sometimes we can read too much into things and come to the wrong conclusion.
We're currently on vacation in Naples, Florida. It's beautiful here. I'm pretty sure heaven will look like this. One of our favorite things to do is to go to either the Marco Island or Naples beaches at night and watch the sun set over the Gulf. It's truly breathtaking. On my birthday we went to dinner on Marco Island and planned to see the sunset afterward, but it had been raining all afternoon. It was still cloudy and foreboding. We didn't want to pay the $8 to park if there wasn't going to be a sunset.
We finally decided to just go for it. And the sunset was a truly unique sunset. It was unlike any other sunset we've seen. The water almost looked light gray. The sky was filled with clouds, but as the sun sank on the horizon it became partially visible near the horizon. It looked like a painting. It was so colorful and so beautiful that it didn't look real.
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We were so focused on looking for signs of a sunset that we almost missed one of the most beautiful ones we have every seen.
A woman who was healed by Jesus probably had the same experience. The Bible tells us that she had been "subject to bleeding for twelve years" and that she suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors. I don't know about you, but this doesn't sound like your best life now.
This woman's life was one of suffering and frustration. All of the signs told her that her case was hopeless. She should just accept her life of misery. But she heard that Jesus was in town and she ignored the signs because she KNEW that He could help her:
A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.
At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”
“You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?' ”
But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.” MARK 5:24-34I never considered this story from this perspective until I either read it or heard it in a sermon recently, but the reality is that the woman was healed just by touching Jesus' robe. That could have been the end of the story. And it would have been miraculous. But Jesus stepped into her life in the most unexpected way. He wouldn't let it go until she came forward and admitted that she touched Him.
Why? It's not as if Jesus didn't know who did it. Much like Santa, he sees everything and knows all. So then His questioning had to be for her. It was so that she would have a face to face conversation with her Savior. It was so that she could shed her old identity of the sickly, downtrodden hopeless gal and emerge as a daughter of God.
That wouldn't have happened for her if she read the signs and stayed home. GOD has a beautiful sunset beyond your current storms. Don't miss it.
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