Bare with me and read the whole post before you assume you know what I am stating!
The woman who had a bleeding disorder for 12 years sought help from doctors for years.The Bible doesn't give a back story of those 12 years, except to mention the doctors who could not heal her. Being a woman I can imagine how truly awful this experience was for her. I can imagine her desperation as she hoped one of the doctors would finally be able to heal her. I can imagine the devastation each time he said he couldn't help her. Each day that passed brought her to all sorts of places in her heart and mind. She was unclean by law and she could have no husband. A Jewish woman was only of value based her marriage and the sons she had. This woman had no value in her world and she experienced the agony of her disease as well.
Luke 8:44 says her bleeding stopped immediately when she touched Jesus garment. There! There is the proof that there are instant miracles. But this woman was being prepared for 12 years to receive this miracle. She had already tried all the conventional ways to be healed. She longed for relief. She longed to be clean. She longed to be accepted by her culture. There is no way that over those 12 years her heart and mind didn't change.
I wonder if she had been a proud woman at one time. Maybe she had been considered extremely beautiful. She had money to pay for the doctors so she may have come from a family of means, but she didn't have anymore money. Verse 43 says that she had spent it all on those doctors. She could not possibly be the same woman she was before her bleeding had begun. Now, she was ready. Now she was at a place in her life where she hid herself, low to the ground so she could touch the hem of Jesus' garment.
He didn't see her. The disciples mention the throng of people and wondered how He could say "someone touched me". Verse 47 states that she realized that she was not hid so she came out trembling and fell before Him. She told Him why she touched Him and that she was healed immediately. He responds that her faith has made her whole.
Faith isn't instant. Faith develops over time. Faith is made from experience. If Jesus had come through her town when she was a month or two into her infliction she have ignored Him and kept visiting her doctor. She would have not been ready to received her healing from Him. She wouldn't have been desperate enough. 12 years in thought she was desperate. Doctors failed her. He money was gone. She was afraid, alone, and had come to a place where she believed the only answer was was Jesus. At the moment she got to that point she was willing to humble herself, get down on the ground, reach out from hiding, and touch His garment.
Her immediate healing took her 12 years to get to.
We are all in a process. No matter what our issue, our wound, our despair is we have to get to the point of being ready to receive that instant miracle. It looks different for each of us. It may be shorter for some and excruciatingly long for others. Her 12 years look like a drop in the bucket for the man who had been blind since birth that was healed. We don't know how old he was but he probably wasn't anywhere near the age of Abraham when he finally saw the miracle of Issac's birth.
Is very easy for me to say, "why isn't he better yet? Why isn't she over it yet? Why is he not healed yet? Why hasn't her faith made her whole? Why am I still waiting to see the promise of the Lord in my life?" It is just as easy for others to do the same. But none of us knows the moment that we will have finally gotten the right measure of faith to receive our instant miracle.
I have learned over the last year, in particular, that I need to shut my mouth. I need to stop wondering and critiquing others' journeys. I believe that some of my experiences over these last eleven months, or so, have been to show me that I need to not judge anyone's journey to that level of faith that brings with it Jesus' words, "daughter (or son), be of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace." and instant healing. I don't know what God still needs to do in them to get them to that place. Frankly, I don't know what He still needs to do to me to get me to that place. But as my faith grows, I know that I will get there and that others will too.
witnessestohope.org
No comments:
Post a Comment