At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked,“Who touched my clothes?”
“You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ”
But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her,“Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”
~ Mark 5:25-34
Some people try to get by with the bare minimum, and that
carries them, as Ryan shared with us tonight. But I am very different, and that
can be both a blessing and a curse. I compulsively try by hardest to do well,
and that carried me up until college. But then Mines comes and slaps (nearly)
everyone in the face, saying, “You have to give your whole self up in order to
do well in this class, and even if you do, you might end up failing.” Thus, the
curse. My life is exercised in an imbalanced way. My slight OCD will force me
into wee hours of the night. I try to fix that by adding other stuff to my
life. But if you exercise parts of your body completely unevenly, you’re gonna
have a bad time. Exercise might be bad. (This
might not be true, but this is why I don’t ever physically exercise.) But God
is watching wondering when I’m going to find the time to spend with Him. What
does everything else matter? I’m killing myself physically and emotionally
without God. When that part lacks, life deteriorates.
It’s hard to let go. I don’t think I even know how, but God
sure knows how to make me, and that could be as painful as popping a bone back
into its socket. But it’s better than the alternative: the muscles of the heart
being victim to atrophy or deterioration.
Have some parts of your life experienced atrophy because of
where your priorities lie? You’re not alone. But why is this? Why have our
traditions triumphed our transformation? Why are rituals ahead of radicalness?
We sit on our couch being lazy, we are at the desk “busy with important things”,
we sit through Bible study or Large
Group like any other week, maybe thinking about the homework due the next day
that you could be doing. We place ourselves in a room where Jesus is, hoping
that’s good enough. That he won’t call us to stand, to go. That he won’t make
us frightened, or won’t make us emotional, won’t make uncomfortable. Our faith
has become weak and deteriorating.
This is sad. And there are stories in the Bible telling how
these people of great faith risked their lives, their comfortable state, their
dignity, and their life. We have brothers and sisters of God in countries all
over the world where it is illegal to follow Jesus. But they risked. All
because they would rather touch Jesus than comfortably be seen with Him.
Gosh, most of us are in some type of engineering. Our
(sometimes obsessive and compulsive) minds have some sense of order, some sense
of problem-solving. Why can’t we engineer our lives, innovate ways to face the (comparatively
small) challenges we face day-to-day. Will you let those stop you? Will you let
the fact that you’re a Mines kid stop you? I need innovation in my life by the
Chief Engineer, my God. I am slowly attempting to challenge myself to let Him
break me back into the person He meant for me to be.
I pray for uncomfortableness in the comfortable. For innovation
in trials. For a longing to touch, a reaching towards God. Will you take a risk and go for more than
being seen with God?
