WATCHWORD:
10 One Sabbath day as Jesus was teaching in a synagogue, 11 he saw a woman who had been crippled by an evil spirit. She had been bent double for eighteen years and was unable to stand up straight. 12 When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Dear woman, you are healed of your sickness!” 13 Then he touched her, and instantly she could stand straight. How she praised God! 14 But the leader in charge of the synagogue was indignant that Jesus had healed her on the Sabbath day. “There are six days of the week for working,” he said to the crowd. “Come on those days to be healed, not on the Sabbath.” 15 But the Lord replied, “You hypocrites! Each of you works on the Sabbath day! Don’t you untie your ox or your donkey from its stall on the Sabbath and lead it out for water? Luke 13:10-15
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1
Meditation:
At Least I Think I Am
Can we follow Jesus if we don’t believe everything about him? What is it that you and I believe? Do you believe that Jesus is not just an idea, but he is a power, that he is, indeed, the Creator God?
Something like ninety-five percent of Jesus’ ministry occurred in a geographic area no larger than the city limits of Fort Wayne. Think about that. And the focus of his ministry was on the “lost”. How do we define that? I think too often we hear the words like lost and saved, and we read certain things into those. Maybe someone’s misuse of those terms has corrupted the meaning of each in our minds.
The crippled woman who came to the synagogue, unable to stand straight, was healed by Jesus without saying a word. That suggests that her faith brought her to church but it was not a real thing in her life until she experienced the healing through Jesus. It was through her faith that she was healed.
In the book of Mark, we learn of Jairus, a leader in the synagogue, who fell at Jesus’ feet and pleaded with him to heal his daughter who was near death. While on the way to Jairus’s home, a woman touched the clothes that Jesus was wearing and was healed. His conversation with her was that her belief in Jesus had healed her. It was then that word came that Jairus’s daughter had died, but Jesus tells the father “Don’t be afraid. Just have faith” (Mark 5:36). We know the rest of the story; the young girl is healed by the faith of her father.
What does that have to do with your belief or mine? Our faith is based on our belief in Jesus. Not just the idea of Jesus but the power of our Lord and Savior. Before we accepted Christ, we were lost. Once we turned to Him, we were saved from our sin-filled lives. The more we know or learn of Christ, the deeper our faith.
My education and my career on college campuses was steeped in human development, psychology, and the way people react under different circumstances. I am no longer a practicing psychologist, I am…I’m not sure how to describe it. But in my writings, whether devotionals or fiction, my imagination is a most important tool, but my faith and my understanding of human development shape the way I think.
I would challenge you with the fact that your imagination is a key part of your faith. As earth-bound humans we are not content with substance of things…not seen. We apply our imagination to give form and meaning to the unknown. At Christmas time we can imagine Bethlehem, and the manager with baby Jesus. At Easter, we can imagine Christ dying on the cross. I don’t think we can understand the pain and suffering that he experienced, but in our minds-eye, our imagination, we can see him on that cross and we know He has risen! That is faith.
When you read scripture, and you pause to ponder the meaning does your imagination play a little film of the setting of the people involved, of what is being said, and how they’re saying it, and for what purpose? I hope it does because that adds meaning and, yes substance, to elements of faith.
Thomas Merton’s prayer of the day acknowledges that we don’t know where we’re going or what is ahead of us, nor do we know what we will encounter. We do the best we can to imagine what the Lord would have us do, and that is based on our faith. Towards the close of that prayer, he believes that the Lord is pleased with our doing the best we can. In truth, that’s all we can do. Faith does have power to help us live our lives, make right decisions and worship the Lord. We can’t see Him, but we can sense Him, we can feel His nudges in our circumstances, and at times we can hear His voice. That my friends is the power of faith. Amen.
Prayer of the Day:
May this prayer by Thomas Merton be a blessing to you this day … reminding you that God is leading you and is “ever with you.” Trusting that God is always working brings us to a place of peace and freedom.
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore, I will trust in you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death, I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. Amen.
