Mark 7:25-30 “In fact, as soon as she heard about Him, a woman whose little daughter was possessed by an impure spirit came and fell at His feet. The woman was a Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia. She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter. “First let the children eat all they want,” He told her, “for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” “Lord,” she replied, “even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Then He told her, “For such a reply, you may go; the demon has left your daughter.” She went home and found her child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.”

There are a number of things that bless my heart about this story. First of all, this lady knew exactly where her help was going to come from! She also knew how to persevere, plus she was prepared to be humble! It didn’t matter that the Lord Jesus seems to put her into a bad category in human eyes – she wanted His help more than she cared about what He called her, or what other people thought! She went to the Source for herself.

You know, over the last 50 years I must have read this scripture so many times! And as soon as I read it, I kind of mentally “put it on the shelf” – instead of asking questions. Because in my mind, this was written about someone who was in the wrong category. She wasn’t Jewish, she was Greek, and so she didn’t actually belong to the people Jesus came to speak to. She was kind of an ‘extra’ on the biblical set in the gospels. Yesterday I discovered what a mistake I had made. I forgot the golden rule … if it is in there then it has significance to me!

Well… that EXTRA,  was not just an ‘extra’ to the Lord – she got what she asked for! And I entered a new learning curve.

Have you ever wondered how so many precious people, who ARE truly Christians, including different denominational  groups – live their lives spiritually eliminating each other? In other words they think their theology is righter than the other guy’s. Maybe they even think they have the ONLY access to knowing what the Lord wants! 😶 Hmmm. There is a story that illustrates this point rather well. It is about two blind guys trying to tell each other what an elephant looks like. One is carefully feeling the tail, and the other the elephant’s ear and SO they start to argue. Both are right, a-n-d also wrong! The revelation always depends on where you are standing! 🤔

Back to these verses in Mark, I noticed something. This woman’s faith was her own, it was in Christ Himself.  There was no theological POV involved. Most times when I went somewhere for prayer, my faith was in the famous guy preaching or praying for people. I figured that God gave that man a gift so He could give me the healing I needed. In other words my theology was awry – I was not applying myself to find out for myself. 

However, that is not what happened here! This woman’s faith, humility, and boldness … took her somewhere. To Christ Himself. She didn’t just get an audience with Him because she humbled herself and persevered … she also got an answer. Then Jesus changed her circumstances. I realised that whatever is said to me, I need to run it by the Lord, first. We can all have our little theories as to why this and that happened but the reality is God can teach us through any situation. Our biggest fault is thinking we already know because somebody else told us. We cannot have second-hand faith – our own faith needs to get a work out interacting with Him and the bible.

This story reminded me of the verse: “Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” Hebrews 4:16. I discovered, that a lot of what I thought I believed, was actually what someone else had experienced and believed, and then they told me, through a book, or at a church meeting. Then I adopted that POV for myself, because I liked what they said and they had scriptures to prove their point! I didn’t pray over it, or ask the Lord how He wanted ME to apply it – I just kind of stuck it in my heart-book of great things I really want to believe. In effect, I had second-hand faith!

This dear woman’s faith was absolutely in Christ. My faith was in another human being, not the Lord. Because I had no personal revelation of what God was saying to me – I was basing what I believed on someone else’s revelation! That’s when I realised that this is a really big learning curve – deliberately choosing to know this stuff for myself.  Assuming what we already know is all the truth there is, is a trap. We need to be open to be taught by the Holy Spirit whilst renewing our own minds through reading the bible for ourselves. 👋🏻