Prayer
Before you read, I invite you to pray this prayer based on Psalm 119:86
Lord, all your commands are trustworthy;
help me to stay faithful to them in these trying times.
Amen.
Briefly prepare your heart in silence, and ask the Holy Spirit to awaken your awareness to the voice of God, coming to you through His Word.
Reading
The synagogue leader and the suffering woman had this in common: they believed that the Lord Jesus had the power to meet their greatest need, and they were desperate for Him to do so.
The synagogue leader’s daughter had just died, but he believed that Jesus could raise her from the dead.
The woman had been suffering from a bleeding disorder for twelve years, but she believed that just one touch of Jesus’ cloak would mediate her healing.
It seems to me that we can derive something very important about Jesus’ will for us from the common denominator we find in His interaction with them both. Jesus calls us to trust Him in the midst of our struggles and trials.
In response to the woman’s secretive act of touching His cloak, Jesus responded, “Take heart, daughter, your faith has healed you.” It’s as though he wanted her to realise that it was not His physical presence nor the touch of His garment that had actually mediated her healing. It was her absolute trust in Him. And He wanted her to maintain that trust, long after He was gone.
At the synagogue ruler’s home, when Jesus found a crowd of people who lacked any faith standing around the daughter’s death bed, He promptly cleared the room. The only people who remained would seem to have been Jesus, the father, and possibly His disciples. By sending them away, Jesus created an environment of faith. In that desperate situation, He wanted to be surrounded by an atmosphere of absolute trust.
From these two interwoven accounts, I believe we can conclude that Jesus longs for us to trust Him completely when we are going through times of struggle and desperation. That trust will sometimes feel like “hoping against all hope”, but that’s okay, because Jesus is the Lord Almighty who loves us and is always with us.
We cannot presume that Jesus will do for us exactly what we hope He will, because he has not promised to do so. But, when our faith is in Him, He will carry us. He will make us “more than conquerors” in every struggle, as we trust in Him (Romans 8:37).
Contemplation
Please take time to ponder what Jesus has commanded us. Turn this declaration over in your mind. Keep it in mind throughout the day and live in step with Your King, Jesus.
As a disciple of Jesus Christ:
- I will trust Him and cling to Him in the midst of every trial!
Lord Jesus, I trust in You! Please help me in the face of my troubles today, for I know that I am weak. But Lord, when I am weak, You are strong for me, and mighty to save. I trust in You . Amen.
Dave's Diary 
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