Expectant Faith

When Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the lake. Then one of the synagogue leaders, named Jairus, came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet. He pleaded earnestly with him, “My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.” So Jesus went with him.  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 5:21-34 (NIV)

This is another reminder that the faithfulness of God is not measured by our circumstance.  For 12 years this woman had seen dead end after dead end.  I can’t imagine the pain and disappointment.  Maybe she had been to countless people for help, to no avail.  In my short time on this earth I have not experienced suffering for anywhere near this length.  Sure, there have been pockets of difficult times, but nothing of this magnitude.  Can you imagine yourself getting no answer for 12 years?  The disappointment, depression that can set in.  If, after a while you begin to see yourself in terms of your condition.....

“Well, Ive been like this for a while, so this is just how it is.”

“I’ve been struggling with _____________ for years, and it’s just something I’ll have to deal with.”

Yes, suffering brings great growth.  Yes, we need to ask questions during the suffering, such as what God is trying to reveal to us.  But this is in the midst of our pursuit of Jesus, not aside from it.  I would like to imagine that the feelings of lowliness and disappointment were still somewhat present with this woman as she approached Jesus.  She was basically “unclean”, and if people knew her condition she possibly could’ve have been prevented from even approaching Jesus.  She lived her life watching others have the freedom to live as they wished.

What strikes me is she approached Jesus with an expectancy that is rarely seen.  No question to him, just a resolve to be near Him.  “If I can just touch his clothes, I will be healed.”  She was convinced that Jesus could bring what she desperately longed for.  She approached him with expectancy.  What would happen to our faith if we had expectancy?  In our prayers?  In our conversations?  In our dreams for what God will do through us?

God delivers a miracle to affirm a faith that was already there.  Don’t you remember Jesus’ words, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

Nothing.  Not removing years of pain.  Not removing shame from sin.  Not doing something unbelievable in your midst.  I wonder, is the reason we don’t see great things of God in our lives because we’re not really expecting them?  There’s a difference between a wishful hope and a resolute expectation.  

And now look at Jesus’ response.  34 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.

Wait.  “Your faith.”  We might look at this and think Jesus is instead referring to His power.  Isn’t that what is really at work here?  But what we’re seeing is the continual work of Jesus: to display God’s power THRU people.  All the power is from God.  The channel that it flows through is humans.  Jesus puts the weight of the woman’s faith front and center.  The power of God meets her faith at a powerful intersection.  And so it is with us.  

Are we challenged in our faith by this woman?  
What is it that we seek from Jesus?
Are we coming close to Him to tell Him? To ask?  

“Give us, gracious Lord, the faith to come right up to you, to touch you in the crowd, to say what it is we need and want you to do for us.”  N.T. Wright

The favor of God

"The Lord was with Joseph so that he prospered,..." 
Genesis 39:2

Everything Joseph touched turned to gold.  Whatever he did was successful.  So Potiphar wants in on the secret.  He was seeing the blessings, so he made Joseph the man in charge.  Joseph pretty much handled everything except feeding Potiphar dinner.  The favor of God was in full force, and everyone around Joseph was reaping the benefits...until Potiphar's wife showed up.   

Joseph is caught in a no-win situation.  He does his part by literally running away from her, but to no avail.  Joseph is thrown into prison, in large part because of a piece of his robe that as ripped off as supposed evidence.  No more blessings, we might think.  No more favor, perhaps. 

But the story tells us something about the favor of God - 

it's not restricted by time or circumstance.

Joseph quickly becomes BMOC in the prison, impressing the warden to the point that he's put in charge of the other prisoners.  Pharaoh then decides that he likes tossing people in jail, so in come the cupbearer and bread maker. They too encounter the favor of God in Joseph, who interprets their dreams. If you know the story, it's possible that the bread maker wished he hadn't asked for the meaning.  

Joseph asks the cupbearer to mention him to Pharaoh when he gets out of the slammer, in hopes that Pharaoh will show kindness and release Joseph.  Good plan, except for the part where the cupbearer forgets...

"The chief cupbearer, however, did not remember Joseph; he forgot him."

Two full years pass.  Has God's favor left?  Are Joseph's best days behind him?  Should he just settle for his role as prison small group leader?

We don't know what Joseph did for those few years, but it had to be tough. We might mistakenly conclude that God's favor had left him during this time.  But there's another truth about the favor of God that we see in this story.  Joseph eventually gets out of prison, interprets Pharaoh's dreams, and is put in charge of all of Egypt.  Pharaoh's decision to place Joseph as second in command comes as a result of his realization that the favor of God is upon him.

“Can we find anyone like this man, one in whom is the spirit of God?”

There we have it.  
The favor of God comes to those who have the spirit of God.

So it is for those who love God.  No matter where you are, or what circumstance you find yourself in, the favor of God is upon you. We know this because of Jesus Christ, who secured for us eternal favor: life with God.

Faith & Circumstance

That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.”  Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him.  A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped.  Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”  He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.  He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”  They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”  Mark 4:35-41

Our tendency is to focus on the here and now; the immediate.  We are mostly consumed with the present reality.  And that's not a bad thing.  It's part of being human.  The disciples were ordinary men like us.  Here they are, in the middle of a legitimate storm.  I don't normally use the word "squall" in my vocabulary, so here's the definition:

A sudden, sharp increase in wind speed which is usually associated with active weather, such as rain showers, thunderstorms, or heavy snow.

This storm was no joke.  The fact that it was sudden would certainly freak me out.  I hate pretty much anything that is sudden or unexpected.  Their reaction is natural: "don't you care?"  We judge by what we see, and what they saw was Jesus sleeping with his head on a bag of sand in the back of the boat.  

It's what they didn't see that has real power: Jesus has power over a life and death circumstance.  "Even the wind and waves obey", they responded. They had been with Jesus all day, watching him heal on the shore of the lake.  Still they weren't quite sure of who he was.  Right up until his death in fact.  But we're like them in a lot of ways: wanting to know when, where, how, etc.

One thing that comes from this not so small episode on the lake: 

Don't judge the care and compassion of God by your present reality.  God's seeming absence or lack of concern is not determined by what we see in front of us.  In reality, His care for us often comes unbeknownst to us.  His work goes on while we sleep (Ps. 17:3).

God is always at work, whether you see it or not.