….if I may touch his garment, I will be made whole. Matthew 9:21 (KJV)
We often spend time, energy, and money trying to fix things we have no experience with. Sometimes, we are too proud to ask for help. Other times we are misguided by the people we expect will have the answers. Sometimes, even in rare cases, the experts will shake their heads in despair and advise that they did everything they knew but could not resolve the problem. What are we expected to do when the experts cannot help us? It is all good when the things we are trying to fix are replaceable. We can throw the old ones out and eventually get ourselves new ones.
What if whatever is not working is something that is not replaceable? Do we throw up our hands in despair, pull our hair out and decide that the outcome is our lot in life? Or do we keep trying and trying until we find a solution?
The story recorded in Matthew 9 tells us of a desperate woman. Life had robbed her of her health, and for 18 long years, she suffered. For 18 long years, she kept trying every doctor anyone recommended to her, and for 18 long years, she believed that some doctor had the cure. She eventually found herself in a place where her money, strength, and energy were gone, she had run out of options for doctors to try, and the only thing left to do was to wait for death to claim her already deteriorated body.
Somewhere in the back of her head, she remembered someone mentioning the name Jesus, a man who claimed to be the son of God and was performing miracles. She was tired, desperate, depressed, lonely, afraid, and had had enough. Everyone and everything else had failed; why should she try Jesus? She would likely come away with the same sad, disappointing news she had received over the last 18 years “sorry, there is nothing I can do to assist you.”
I believe a small voice inside her head whispered to her, “why not try Jesus”? “You have nothing to lose.” She might have wrestled with the voice for a bit and then decided that she had already lost everything and at least going to Jesus was free. Then came the challenges, because of her medical condition, she was considered unclean and was not supposed to be among people, and secondly, with the crowds that followed Jesus, there was no way she would get Jesus to notice her.
She didn’t realize that “….. Before she was formed in her mother’s womb…..” (Jeremiah 1:5) God knew her and her situation and wanted to help her. I believe we hurt God’s heart when we run to everyone else with our situations and challenges, except him, when he is the only one with the answers we seek. Broken but determined, she decided to make one last try, one last effort, to get help. To get this help, she was putting a lot at stake, and she had to make a bold step and take her eyes off the obstacles and instead keep her eyes on Jesus.
As she mustered the strength, made her way toward Jesus, and saw the crowd, she knew there was no way she could get to the front of the big swarming crowds to have an audience with Jesus. She knew this was her last chance, her only hope, and she was determined not to let it slip her by.
Sometimes, our situations can seem so bleak and hopeless, with no money, job, family, marriage, confidence, or hope… but always JESUS. His word promised us in Matt28:20 (… low I am with you always…) and Hebrews 13:5 (… I will never leave or forsake thee…). However, like the woman in our story, we must be desperate enough to stop at nothing until we get our victory.
Despite the crowd, her fears, her feelings, and her concerns, she decided to press through the crowd, face the risks, and get to Jesus. When that seemed impossible, she decided to do something out of the ordinary, out of the box, take the only opportunity available to her, touch the hem of his garment, and immediately, she was healed. The most beautiful part of the story is that Jesus felt her touch and said, “who touched me”?
Trembling in fear, she identified herself to our loving Savior, who applauded her faith and sent her to her house, healed and whole.
What about you today? Whatever state you find yourself in, Jesus is waiting for you to reach out to him in faith. Whatever you can do, do it in faith today, even if it is to whisper the name of Jesus. Go ahead, do that. He is only a prayer away.
One woman had come to the end of her solutions, the only thing left was for her to die, but she refused and reached out to Jesus, and as usual, he provided the help she so desperately needed.
All the people we run to when in trouble cannot help us, and we need to run to the expert who has the answers and is willing to help us. Before spending all our strength and energy trying to get useless support, let us reach out to Jesus. He can fix anything, and he is a Master Specialist. No marriage is too broken. No child is too far gone, no depression too overwhelming, no hurt that he can’t heal, no chain that he can’t break. Today, look past the obstacles preventing you from reaching Jesus and, in faith, press forward and touch him because he is the only one qualified to meet us at the point of our need and bring change and victory into our lives.