O Woman, Great Is Your Faith!

"Then Jesus answered and said to her,

'O woman, great is your faith!

Let it be to you as you desire.'

And her daughter was healed from that very hour."

Matthew 15:28

I want to be like that woman!! To have the kind of faith that is not afraid to approach Jesus even when others may try to drive me away or discourage me as I pursue Him with my hopes, fears, dreams, pleas for healing, forgiveness, comfort and strength...  

In this particular woman's case, she was pleading for healing for her daughter who was demon-possessed.  (See Matthew 15: 21-28 for the whole story.)  She was a gentile, a woman of Canaan, and not one of the flock of Israel.  Jesus' disciples advised Him to send her away because she was making a spectacle of herself and becoming a nuisance with her crying out and pleading for her daughter to be healed.  But Jesus instead responded to the woman with a little test of her faith...He said in verse 24:

"I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."

 (This little squirrel was watching us from a wall not far from our table while we ate our anniversary lunch at a local restaurant this past week)

But she came and worshiped Him, and pleaded with Him to help her.  He tested her faith a little more by saying this:

26.  "It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs." 

Now, I'll admit that I've never particularly liked this response or completely understood Jesus comparing this woman to the "little dogs".  But he was making an analogy that she understood, and she did not take it as a personal offense.  She replied,

27.  "Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters' table." 

Then is when Jesus acknowledged her great faith and responded with such love and grace and POWER...

28.  "O woman, great is your faith!  Let it be to you as you desire." 

And the Bible says that her daughter was healed from that very hour!

I want to be that woman! I want to have such great faith in the face of obstacles, insecurities, fear, anxiety, hopelessness!  I realize that God is not going to always give me exactly what I am asking for here on earth because He knows what is best for me and for those for whom I may be asking. I've had to acknowledge the fact that God sees the bigger picture...that eternal picture that I cannot yet see with my earthly human eyes...and that sometimes the thing that I am asking for may not be in my best interest.  But GOD!  And I could stop right there.  But GOD always answers my prayers...sometimes with responses that I may not realize or recognize until I reach heaven's gates...and always with answers that are eternally wonderful and perfectly right and good.  I want to be able to approach Him fearlessly as well as humbly, knowing that He will never turn me away regardless of my human condition. I want to have that kind of faith that can accept whatever God gives with grace, thankfulness, and peace.

Lord, help me to have this kind of faith today.  Faith that does not give up in the face of obstacles or greater tests of my faith. Faith that persists even when it appears You may be saying, "No, or Not yet."  Faith that recognizes Your everlasting love and mercy in the midst of the seas of doubt and fear. Thank You, Lord, for Your great love and kindness to this "little dog".  Amen.

This little "dog" (squirrel) was finally bold enough to go searching for crumbs under our table .

I'm sorry to say I wasn't as kind as Jesus was to the lady in this passage today. I didn't feed the squirrel because it appeared he would have jumped right into our laps if we would have...but there were plenty of crumbs available...