Last week I danced on the fringes of this thought:
“Rescue and redemption are costly.”
If that’s true then, what am I willing to spend for wholeness? It’s a question lurking at the edges of my mind for a while. You know how you get to that place where you’ve travelled a path so familiar you’re not really paying attention? Then a day comes, perhaps when you have to take a slightly different route and suddenly you’re noticing things — little things that were always there but now you really see them.
It’s true with places and with people.
Simple circumstances or an earth shaking crisis cause shifts in our landscape and if we are halfway awake, we might begin to see and notice things differently. We might finally see what’s important.
Sometimes we find a deeper grace.
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I see it in often in my relationship with God and especially through the Scriptures.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve opened to a passage so familiar when suddenly, a new understanding pools and collects on the page before me. Combined with my angle and attitude of approach, the Spirit speaks in just the way my wandering and wondering heart needs to hear.
It happened not long ago at a women’s conference as speaker, Kim Hardy taught from a passage I’ve travelled many times in my years walking with Jesus. In fact, it’s the first passage I ever shared with a group of women nearly twelve years ago.
Twelve years.
Now, that’s no coincidence.
Her somewhat familiar story is found in three of the four Gospels but Mark says it best:
A woman with a “condition”.
Twelve years and she’s spent in every way you can imagine.
So desperate for healing that when she hears reports about Jesus, she knows exactly what she must do.
She has to get to Jesus. He is her only hope.
There was a “great throng” of people crowding around Jesus as he travelled that day; a shoulder to shoulder crush of people struggling forward all trying to have a moment with the Master.
{side note: I’ve never been in a throng but it makes me anxious unto puking just to think about it!}
It was a throng so thick you just couldn’t walk through it. This woman had to crawl.. on the ground, through the dirt. Hands, knees, belly. Then, with a final desperate push, her hand manages to graze the hem of Jesus’s garment.
And I’m just struck wildly by this picture. I mean, can you imagine what she was thinking? Her frame of mind … …her freakin’ passion??!?!
She was healed….immediately.
Jesus stops in his tracks and in a throng-stopping voice asks, “Who touched Me?” And you know… those disciples testify truthfully when they basically say, “Hello?! Do you not see this throng of people pushing and grabbing at you? Master, you are getting touched left and right!” (Lorretta’s imperfect paraphrase)
Now…here’s where I’m blown away anew. This woman is already healed. She got what she believed she came for. And we all know Jesus knew exactly who touched Him and why because that woman didn’t just touch Jesus. No,
He touched her first.
Before she ever left the house the story of Jesus had reached her ears and her heart and touched her soul so deeply that she unquestioningly knew what she wanted to do. Before she ever got on the ground to crawl through the dirt to where He was, she was already touched by Him. He released his power, she didn’t “steal” or take it.
So when she steps up to show herself, she then does the very thing that completes her healing. She confesses— she tells Jesus–and everyone else by the way, the whole story.
The. WHOLE. story.
Jesus responds with these words: “Daughter, your faith has made you well, go in peace and be healed of your disease.” (Mark 5:34)
She came for healing and Jesus showed her holy making her… whole and His.
This woman’s story of rescue and redemption just teaches me SO much on every level:
- She was spent and desperate and willing to submit her whole self to Jesus. …Am I?
- She was brave. She spent her last bit as she stepped beyond her fears and confessed the WHOLE story. She didn’t care who else heard or about possible retribution (c’mon, a hemorrhaging discharge?… use your imagination) ….Can I?
- She testified then and her life is testifying still. ….Will I?
And just what is her testimony for me today? Faithfulness? Courage? Healing? Yes. All that and much more.
Because the story really isn’t about her is it? It’s about Jesus.
And it’s not only about His power to heal a disease. He can and sometimes does.
See, this woman wasn’t only healed; she was changed. She was saved.
Oh, and what was her name?
We don’t know… maybe because it doesn’t matter, even to her. So healed was she that from there on after, it didn’t matter if she had a name…
because she now has a Savior.
That’s where her story continues to point us to: Jesus.
Honestly, it kinda scares the waddin’ out of me.
Because I don’t know exactly what it might look like to daily live this kind of spent and be the kind of desperate that no matter what else is going on, I just HAVE to get to Jesus because He is my only hope.
But I’m willing to try. To try and tell only about Him with my WHOLE story because I’ve been so changed by his healing rescue and redemption that my story points other always to Him and nothing else matters. Not even my name
I wanna stay spent because rescue and redemption are costly. Oh Lord help me be brave like her.
What about you dear friend? What are you willing to spend for wholeness?
spent,
