The Bridge HTX blog

Every week, there are things that I encounter in my study and preparation for the week's teaching. This week we looked at Mark 5:21-42 and leaned into how we should respond when God's timing results in us waiting in anguish in what seems to be neglect. You can listen to the sermon HERE. Actually, please do listen to it if you are able, it will help this post have more context.

In our teaching, we pursued understanding two important Truths that can lead us to persevere with peaceful patience with God while we go through pain, suffering, and need. Those two Truths were:

1) You will give more and get more than you bargained for when you approach Jesus for help.

2) Jesus gives more of Himself than He asks of you.

While these two Truths are foundational and were the ones God led us to focus on within the recorded teaching, there is one more that emerged from our study of Mark thus far that seems worth sharing.

If you have not already, take a moment to read Mark 5:21-42

Now that you have experienced this crazy moment and scene with Jesus, His disciples, an excited crowd, a desperate father with a deathly ill daughter, and a chronicly ill woman, let's look at one more Truth that is really important and, I pray, helpful for you. It is this:

Our impatience with God is often rooted in our insecurity in who God is and in who we are to Him.

How did Jairus understand Jesus? He understood Him as healer but not Lord.

How did the hemorrhaging woman see herself? She felt she was unworthy to approach Jesus but Jesus welcomed her in.

Yes, we face legitimate hardships and devastation in this life and God never downplays that or tells us to dismiss that reality. He, over and over again, works to reveal His nature to us... that He is loving, Holy, Wise, faithful, good, and true.

Once again, Jesus is calling out the same Truth, promise, and invitation. He is telling and showing us that our life is in His eternal hands. His ways are not our ways. His timing is not our timing. His goodness is always better than ours. His intent is always better than ours. His wisdom is always wiser than ours… the list goes on. We are also told by Jesus that it is by HIS merit, not our ours that we are worthy to approach Him.

Jairus was correct that Jesus can heal because, after all, Jesus, the King, has authority over sickness and health. But the man did not realize that it is no different for Jesus to heal a sickness as it is for Him to raise someone from the dead because Jesus the King's authoirty is not just over health and sickness but also over all of life and death. 

The woman was correct that she was unworthy in it of herself to approach the holiness of Jesus but she needed to encounter the grace and love of Jesus that says she is worthy because of how Jesus sees her and who He says she is according to what He has done.

This is true for us too. We can be patient in our suffering because we Trust the sovereign wisdom and grace of Jesus and we know that He welcomes us because of his grace and love as we are to have our deepest needs met.

I pray this finds you well and the the Truth of God's grace in Christ being present in your suffering is a comfort and a strength for you today. God bless.