FROM DESPERATION TO WHOLENESS

Mark 5:25-34 tells the story of a woman who had suffered for twelve years with a condition that left her physically drained and socially isolated. Her story reminds us of the transformative power of faith in Christ.

The woman, having exhausted all earthly options, approached Jesus in desperation. Her faith drove her to reach out and touch His garment, believing that even the smallest act could connect her to His power. Often, it is in our lowest moments of desperation -- when we recognize our own limitations -- that we truly open the door to God’s miraculous intervention.

For years, her condition had left her ostracized, an outcast in her community. But Jesus didn’t just heal her physically; He publicly acknowledged her, calling her "Daughter." In that moment, she was restored not only to health but to belonging. God’s power doesn’t just address our needs -- it draws us into relationship with Him and with others.

The touch of Jesus didn’t merely stop her bleeding; it made her whole. God’s power goes beyond the surface, bringing complete restoration to body, mind, and soul. When we turn to Him, we experience not just healing but transformation into the fullness of life He intends for us.

Let this passage remind us that no matter how desperate or isolated we feel, God’s power in Christ is available to bring us into healing, community, and wholeness. May we, like the woman, reach out in faith to Christ and experience His transformative love. 

-- Based on a sermon by Pastor Wes Olds, Grace Church, Cape Coral, Florida  

#6080

LIFE IS FRAGILE

“Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."  (Matthew 28:20b)

The thread of life is fragile.   A few cells within a healthy body grow erratically and we receive the diagnosis of cancer; a second's misjudgment at an intersection, and a life is lost; a heart that keeps its cadence for decades skips a few beats and we find ourselves in intensive care; a friend loses her baby during pregnancy; an aging parent shows signs of Alzheimer's; violence strikes someone we know.  None of us is immune to such devastating experiences for ourselves, our families, or among our friends.  Inexpressible suffering barges in at unexpected moments.  And everyone balances the more common (yet anguishing) anxieties, setbacks, and losses that challenge our ability to cope – conflict at home, financial loss, trouble with teenagers, struggles with alcohol, feelings of loneliness.  No one lives without facing a threatening darkness.

We overestimate our capacity to handle these things all by ourselves, and we underestimate the power of community to help.  Belonging to a caring community, we discover a sustenance that does not answer all our questions or end all our challenges, but which keeps us connected, rooted, grounded.  When the worst happens, God doesn't promise us an answer; God provides us a relationship.  Through sustaining relationships, we discover that God is not aloof from life and disinterested in us.  Instead, God gets in the trenches and suffers with us.  We are not alone.  God is with us.  God's presence reaches us through the people who love us.  The thread of life is fragile, but the fabric of life is eternal. 

-- Robert Schnase in “Five Practices of Fruitful Living”

#5708

BEAUTY OUT OF ASHES

The opening words of Isaiah 61 promise that God will bring beauty into broken lives.  He will give beauty in exchange for ashes. God will do this, the prophet tells us, that these very people might be called trees of righteousness, "a planting of the Lord" for His glory.

Those are comforting words for those pressed with limitations, those who know a daily struggle with profound personal obstacles.  I know people like this.  Broken men and women who have been given beauty for ashes; radiant believers who heighten God's reputation in a cynical world.

At a recent concert I watched members of a deaf choir stand up front to "sign" as the worship choir sang.  The faces of those who were signing the words beamed with joy.  You could tell they really believed the words of those hymns, even though they couldn't hear the sounds or the phrasing or the music. I tried to be cool and not cry.  But I just couldn't stop the flow of tears.  I was deeply moved.

Sometime later I felt the same surge of emotion when I listened to the testimony of a man named David Ring.  David is severely disabled with cerebral palsy and you have to listen intently to catch what he's saying.  But in a thick, guttural voice, he spoke of the priority of giving thanks.  His thoughts were threaded with Scripture, saturated with peace and joy. Once again, my tears fell freely.  Nor did I feel foolish or ashamed for crying.

Later on, however, I asked myself why I'd been so moved.  I genuinely examined my motive.  Was it pity?  Was I simply feeling sorry for those people because of their disabilities? No, I don't think so.  I think I was responding to Isaiah's theme… it was the beauty.  It was the lovely character, a right response, a solid witness, all born out of brokenness.  Out of what could have been bitter ashes, God gave these people something more.  They had become the planting of the Lord "for His splendor."

So the next time you find yourself deeply moved by the joyful perseverance of a Christian with a disability, thank the Lord for the grace that brings beauty out of ashes.

-- Joni Earkeckson Tada in “Glorious Intruder”

#5113

WHEN WE FACE TIMES OF DARKNESS

“This is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you: God is light; in Him there is no darkness at all.”  (1 John 1:5 NIV)

“In Him there is no darkness at all. The night and the day are both alike.” (Kathleen Thomerson, from the hymn “I want to Walk as a Child of the Light”)

This phrase reminds me that God permeates everything -- the night that I fear and the morning that I welcome. God, and God’s grace, surrounds us throughout all of life -- the easy, loving parts and the hard, difficult, scary times. God lives in both the night and the day -- they are just alike to God. When we face times of darkness in our personal lives, in our families, in our community or world, God moves close to us, loving us and holding our hands even if we are not aware of it, even if we think God is absent…

When we are facing a dark night of the soul, when we are sick or grieving, when we have hurt others or have been hurt by them, we are not alone. The God of darkness and light stays beside us. And the God of darkness and light sends messengers -- messengers like you and me -- to remind us that we are not alone… We are called to be children of the light, doers, messengers to others of God’s love and grace, God’s comfort and forgiveness.

-- Beth A. Richardson in “Child of the Light”

#4804

A LOADED QUESTION

“One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, He asked him, ‘Do you want to get well?’”  (John 5:5-6 NIV)

It’s a strange thing to ask. A man is severely handicapped and spends his days hanging out at a healing pool. Does he want to get well? Do people at the gym want to get in shape? Would Gilligan wish to disembark the island?

Seems like a silly question -- unless it’s a loaded one. But the longer I serve people as a minister, the more I understand the question Jesus asks here. The answer is not self-evident at all. There are lots of people who like to hang around the waters without actually wishing to be healed. A lot of people come to church but don’t really want God’s help.

People do things for lots of reasons, not always the most obvious ones. They have motives they themselves may not even understand.

So Jesus gets right to the issue: You’ve been stuck in neutral for a while. Do you really want something better? Or have you laid down roots in a place of quiet desperation and low expectations?

-- Kyle Idleman in “The End of Me: When Real Life in the Upside-Down Ways of Jesus Begins”


#4762

CHOOSING TO TRUST

“How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me? Look on me and answer, LORD my God. Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death, and my enemy will say, ‘I have overcome him,’ and my foes will rejoice when I fall. But I trust in Your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in Your salvation.”  (Psalm 13:2-5 NIV)

Every time a believer struggles with sorrow or loneliness or ill health or pain and chooses to trust and serve God anyhow, a bell rings out across heaven and the angels give a great shout. Why? Because one more pilgrim has shown again that he or she understands that Jesus is worth it all. God is faithful.

-- Philip Yancey in “Disappointment with God”


#4718

I THINK I CAN’T

[In John chapter 5] Jesus asks the simplest kind of question -- the kind that can be answered with yes or no. “Do you want to get well?”

The man’s answer is none of the above. “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.” (John 5:7 NIV)

Jesus has just been briefed on this situation, probably while the disabled man sat and listened. So when Jesus looks down and asks if he wants to be well, the man know his motives are being called into question. And he launches into his well-worn excuse.

The book “Happiness Is a Choice” by Frank Minirth and Paul Meier is devoted to overcoming depression. In it, the authors discuss the tendency of Christians to say “I can’t” when they find themselves confronted by obstacles. They write about how they cringe when patients use the words “I can’t” and “I’ve tried,” which the two doctors identify as “lame excuses.” Instead, they insist their patients use the words “I won’t.”

When working with a man who says, “I just can’t get along with my wife,” the two counselors would make him rephrase that as, “I just won’t get along with my wife.” “I can’t control my spending” would become, “I won’t control my spending.” They believe that the sooner people understand the place of their own free will, the sooner they can begin to move toward a cure. 

-- Kyle Idleman in “The End of Me: Where Real Life in the Upside-Down Ways of Jesus Begins” 


#4541

TRUSTING IN THE LORD

“God, I look to You for help.  I trust in You, Lord.”  (Psalm 141:8)

Don't put your hope into things that can change -- relationships, money, talents, beauty, even health.  Set your sights on the one thing that can never change: trust in your heavenly Father.

-- Max Lucado

#4134

BIBLICAL WISDOM

Many people think that what's written in the Bible has mostly to do with getting people into heaven -- getting right with God, saving their eternal souls.  It does have to do with that, of course, but not mostly.  It is equally concerned with living on this earth -- living well, living in robust sanity.  In our Scriptures, heaven is not the primary concern, to which earth is a tag-along afterthought.  "On earth as it is in heaven" is Jesus' prayer.

"Wisdom" is the biblical term for this on-earth-as-it-is-in-heaven everyday living.  Wisdom is the art of living skillfully in whatever actual conditions we find ourselves.  It has virtually nothing to do with information as such, with knowledge as such.  A college degree is no certification of wisdom -- nor is it primarily concerned with keeping us out of moral mud puddles, although it does have a profound moral effect upon us.

Wisdom has to do with becoming skillful in honoring our parents and raising our children, handling our money and conducting our sexual lives, going to work and exercising leadership, using words well and treating friends kindly, eating and drinking healthily, cultivating emotions within ourselves and attitudes toward others that make for peace.  Threaded through all these items is the insistence that the way we think of and respond to God is the most practical thing we do.  In matters of everyday practicality, nothing, absolutely nothing, takes precedence over God.

-- Eugene Peterson in “The Message”


#4089

GOD'S HEALING SPIRIT

God desires our health, our wholeness of body, mind, and spirit.  This bold affirmation rests on the knowledge and experience of God in the life of Israel and the church.  God was revealed to Israel as "the LORD, who heals you" (Exodus 15:26), whose deepest and most consistent desire was to redeem, bless, and restore God's people…

In the here and now, we can count on this: that whenever we open ourselves to the activity of the Holy Spirit, some kind of healing takes place.  Indeed, God invites us to ask for what we need just as a child would ask a parent.  Even when our lives are filled with suffering or wracked with agonizing questions, we can cling to the faith that God is with us, somehow always offering new life and healing.

-- Tilda Norberg & Robert D. Webber in Stretch Out Your Hand


#4021

THE GRIEVING EYES OF A DOCTOR

The role of a doctor may be the most revealing image in thinking about God and sin. What a doctor does for me physically -- guide me toward health -- God does for me spiritually. I am learning to view sins not as an arbitrary list of rules drawn up by a cranky Judge but rather as a list of dangers that must be avoided at all costs -- for our own sakes…


Sin represents a grave danger to my spiritual, and perhaps my physical, health. The more I see my sins in this light, the more I understand God's strong words against them. I find myself gazing into the grieving eyes of a Doctor whose patients are destroying themselves. As Jesus said, applying the doctor image to Himself, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."


-- Phillip Yancey




#3665

OUR GREATEST NEED

If mankind's greatest need had been knowledge,
God would have sent us an educator.
If mankind's greatest need had been physical health,
God would have sent us a doctor.
If mankind's greatest need had been money,
God would have sent us an entrepreneur.
If mankind's greatest need had been excitement,
God would have sent us an entertainer.
But mankind's greatest need was forgiveness,
so God sent us a Savior.

-- Roy Lessin, adapted


#3501

THE STRENGTH I NEED

Iris Bammert walked slower than most to the podium.  Her face reflected a quiet confidence that no matter how long it took, she would reach her goal.  At last, she reached the microphone and spoke with gentle strength.  "God has let me know that in this life we have tribulation, but be of good cheer.  I have overcome the world."

Iris had suffered a debilitation stroke in the prime of her life.  Her whole world changed in a moment -- from self-sufficiency to complete dependency.  She can't drive a car anymore; instead she's driven to her knees in prayer, seeking a strength that is not her own.  She can barely speak, but God enabled her to remind the women in our Bible study, "This life is not so important.  Don't forget the Lord is the One who does everything in and through us."

God does not ask you to walk in your own strength -- He knows that is impossible.  However, He does promise to give you the strength you need to walk in a way that is pleasing to Him.  Philippians 4:13 reminds us, "I can do everything with the help of Christ who gives me the strength I need" (NLT).

-- Lenya Heitzig and Penny Pierce Rose in Pathway to God's Treasure: Ephesians


#3427

THE HEALTH OF MY SOUL

“How is your spiritual life going?”

I used to answer this question by looking at the state of my devotional activities:  Did I pray and read the Bible enough today?  The problem is that by this measure the Pharisees always win.  People can be very disciplined but remain proud and spiteful.  How do we measure spiritual growth so that the Pharisees don’t win?

I asked a wise man, “How do you assess the well-being of your soul?”

He immediately said, “I ask myself two questions”:

1. Am I growing more easily discouraged these days?
2. Am I growing more easily irritated these days?

At the core of a flourishing soul are the love of God and the peace of God.  If peace is growing in me, I am less easily discouraged.  If love is growing, I am less easily irritated.  It was a brilliantly helpful diagnostic to assess the health of my soul.

 

-- John Ortberg in The Me I Want to Be

 

 

#3399

THE BREAD OF LIFE

We thrive when we eat properly.  If we eat right, we feel healthy and full of energy.  If we eat the wrong foods, we tend to drag around and not feel quite like ourselves.

To sustain ourselves spiritually, we must feed on the living bread of life that comes from the Bible, the Word of God.  The Lord promises we will never be hungry or thirsty if we eat the bread of life.

-- Elisabeth Elliot


#3291

THE IMPORTANCE OF REST

I'm learning the importance of rest. If always on the go, I'm exhausted. I need some quiet time. My physical health depends upon it. My emotional health depends on slowing down. To deal with the stress of life, I need a time of calm. My spiritual life depends on it. I can't make it on my own but depend on my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.

-- J. David Muyskens in Sacred Breath: Forty Days of Centering Prayer, Copyright 2010. Used with permission of Upper Room Books


#3048