Keep Reaching
Background Story: Jesus is walking through a crowd of people in a busy part of town with his disciples.
Read Luke 8:43-48
43 And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. 44 She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped.
45 “Who touched me?” Jesus asked.
When they all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you.”
46 But Jesus said, “Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.”
47 Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. 48 Then he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”
Big Idea: Never stop bringing your need to God in prayer.
Jesus was walking through a super busy street when a woman reached through the crowd to touch Him. Feeling the power of healing leave Him, Jesus turned to his disciples and said, “Who touched me?” With crowds of people pressing in, the touch of this woman was different from all of the others.
We know two things for sure about this woman: she had faith and she was desperate for a miracle. She had lived for 12 years with a rare disease and spent all her money trying to find a cure. Because of her disease, she was unable to worship in the temple and had most likely lived a life of loneliness and isolation. But when she heard Jesus coming down her street, she pressed through the crowd in utter desperation to touch even just the robe of Jesus.
God responds to the desperate… the one who comes in faith desiring a touch from Him. We see this in the tears of Hannah in 1 Samuel 1, in Elijah’s pleading prayers in 1 Kings 17, and the cries of the blind beggar in Luke 18. Psalm 61:1-2 says, “So often I feel overwhelmed, Lord. Hear my cry, attend to my prayer. From the needs of the earth I cry to You. When my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock that is higher than I. You are my rock, God. You are my strength and my fortress.” The cry of the desperate moves the heart of God when we approach Him with faith knowing He is able.
After the woman pressed through the crowd, touched Jesus and received her miracle, the passage says, “the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came.” When we cry out to God in prayer about the deep needs of our heart, He sees us. You, dear friend, in whatever trial or circumstance you find yourself, cannot go unnoticed by God. Lift your head! Look to Jesus who calls you son or daughter. Run after Him in desperate pursuit and have faith today that the God you serve sees you, loves you, and is able!
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Similar Devotions: The True Breaker of Chains, So Much Pressure, My Rock, Climb Above, For Every Need, Running the Race, Eyes Opened, Because You Say So, An Encounter At The Well, Heard, Because You Say So, The Stone Mover
