Today’s passage is Mark 8:1-13. When a great crowd has been with Jesus for three days in a remote place, Jesus worries that they will faint with hunger on the way home. His disciples say they have only seven loaves of bread and a few small fish. Jesus blesses them and gives them to the crowd. The disciples collect seven baskets of leftovers. On his going to a town, the Pharisees ask for a miracle, but Jesus says they won’t be given one. He gets in his boat and goes across the lake.
What sign are you demanding from God?
What compassion do you have on those around you?
I have been sick for a few weeks now, not sick enough to stay in the hospital but not well enough to take part in things as well as I did a few months ago.
It’s a little depressing. I want to be one way, to be healthy, but I’m not.
To understand why, I need prayer and reflection.
I haven’t actually asked God to heal me in the way he did the bleeding woman, who asked for salvation when she reached out to touch Jesus’ cloak.
I haven’t asked God what the matter is.
I just assumed that I’m old and weaker than before and I usually get sick in February, so there’s nothing much to think about.
But because I believe things happen for a reason, I should have been praying for understanding and for God’s compassion on me.
Not only do I have an unhealthy body at the moment, I also have an unhealthy attitude that keeps my body in a low state of health.
Like the Pharisees, I fail to see the signs in front of me and ask for other ones instead.
I have been with Jesus for three days and I need the bread and fish of resurrection or else I will faint.
I see the miracles of families restored, of amazing repentances, of new lives begun, yet I ask for no deep healing for myself.
Like the bleeding woman, I am wasting my time and resources on the wrong thing.
Jesus does have compassion on me but I have been around him long enough to know that I need to ask for his healing of the real issue, not the superficial.
I need his help for the strength to walk home.
I’m not asking for a miracle, just help to get home.
Application: pray for a healing of the attitude that blocks me. Help others today.
Lord, let me not live on assumptions that you will do this and that, but let me come boldly before your throne with my requests and petitions.
