I have known people in my life who have experienced great disappointment with God. They tell me they prayed, asked God for something important to them, and never heard from him. In their disappointment some of these people have taken the position toward God they think he has taken toward them: indifference.
Perhaps you know someone who has had this experience. Perhaps this describes your experience with God. Your prayer seemed to go unanswered, and since God seemed to have little time for you, you have little time now for Him.
A woman once came to Jesus desperate for help. The author of the Bible book of Matthew tells us that she was a Canaanite woman. That detail matters mostly because of the ethnic and cultural barriers prevalent at that time in that region. Jesus was a Jew. She’s a Canaanite. If there was anyone Matthew’s readers would expect Jesus not to help it would be a Canaanite woman.
Nevertheless, the woman comes to Jesus crying out a desperate request, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession.” It is a heart cry, a plea born in the anguish of a mother’s love. This is no selfish prayer for a new car or a better house. This woman is begging for life. This is a serious, serious prayer request.
And Jesus doesn’t answer her. Not a word. This woman crosses ethnic and cultural barriers and approaches the one person she is convinced can help her. She recognizes the problem is spiritual and requires a response from someone with spiritual authority and power. She identifies Jesus as that person. But he is silent.
He walks on with his disciples, but she follows. She continues to cry out. She is unrelenting in her belief that he alone can help her. She will not take “no” for an answer. It is significant that she persists because many of us do not. We believe God to be our help, but if he does not answer us expediently and in kind with our request, we too often lose heart and walk away disappointed, discouraged, and angry. This woman does not. She perseveres.
Jesus’ disciples seek to send her away. She’s annoying.
Jesus is not responding. They appear to have a “let’s get done with this episode” attitude. Jesus responds by telling them what they want to hear. Matthew records it because it is what his readers would expect Jesus to say. “I was sent only to the house of Israel.”
Really? Could God be so callous, so uncaring of the needs of the rest of the world? No, he is not that uncaring or callous, but there is something to be learned here. Something for all of us.
The woman comes and throws herself at his feet in humility, and hope, and faith, as we will see by the end of the story. “Lord, help me.” Not a lot of words but a lot of need. Jesus finally responds directly to her.
“It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.” Jesus is not insulting the woman. He is inviting his disciples and this woman to see God in a different light. His response is exactly what they all expect, but he is about to exceed their expectations and do something more than they can imagine in their present mental framework.
The woman replies, “Yes, Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Here’s what this woman understands, this desperate woman who approaches God with a request that is beyond hope unless He intervenes: No matter the degree of relationship, compassion provides. A dog may not be a son, but no master with even a hint of compassion would deprive even a dog of the overflow of his table.
That’s faith. Faith recognizes that God is love and God loves and God loves all people regardless of how the world might describe the nature of one person’s relationship with God compared to another person’s. And faith holds on and keeps coming back. No matter how long it takes, because faith knows God will respond. Love always responds.
Then Jesus answered, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.
It is not ethnic or cultural guidelines and criteria that God considers in answering prayer. It is not the depth of desperation attached to those prayers that God considers. It is faith. It is that deep trust that God alone can and will answer because he is and does love.
She had to wait. She had to persevere. She had to humble herself. She had to believe good of God beyond her experience. And she got what she asked for.
That’s the Good News.
Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This week our contributor is Pastor Dale McIntire who has served as pastor of the Cornerstone Community Church in Grand Marais since April of 1995.
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