"Willingness"

 

“Willingness”

 

(For some time Karen has been journaling her thoughts as she reads through God’s Word. She shared these insights from Matthew 8:1-4 with me in late January and with her permission I’m passing them along to you with the prayer that they’ll resonate with all who read them as they did with me.)

 

In reading David Guzick’s commentary on these verses it really got me to thinking about Jesus’ healing of the leprous man. First, lepers were to stay away from other people. They were mistreated, isolated, rejected and hopeless of ever being healed. But this man approached Jesus more closely than he should have. The Scriptures don’t say what the crowd’s reaction was but it couldn’t have been good.

This is the first time Jesus was called “Lord” in Matthew. Here were all these people following Jesus, watching Him heal and listening to Him teach. But had they made the connection that Jesus was God like the leper had? There’s no indication that any of them had. The crowd walked with Jesus and sat down to listen to Him, but the leper bowed down to Jesus in worship. He recognized that Jesus was Lord and deserved his act of worship.

And then Jesus touched the man, a man who was totally devoid of human touch because of his disease, not because Jesus couldn’t have healed him with just a word but perhaps because the kind touch of another would bring emotional healing to the man as well.

Jesus meets our needs individually. He knows us intimately and thoroughly. I recognize His healing power but I don’t demand that He heal me. I acknowledge His sovereignty and say, “If You want to, if it’s Your will, You will heal me”, just as the leper did. And regardless of my being healed or not, I worship Him, for He is worthy.

 

Grace and Blessing!

 

Karen McMillan