Desperate For JesusSample

We tend to find ourselves in what we would consider desperate circumstances, and sometimes it seems difficult to know where to go from rock bottom. 

But in the story of the sick woman reaching for Jesus’s garment, she was at rock bottom. Her plan to touch Jesus’s garment emerged from her desperate circumstances. In Luke’s account of the woman, he noted that she had had a hemorrhage for twelve years and could not be healed by anyone (Luke 8:43). The Gospel of Mark’s version of this story added that the woman had already seen many physicians and spent all that she had. But instead of getting better, she just got worse (Mark 5:26). 

The accounts in Luke and Mark painted a stark picture of a woman who was exhausted physically and financially. Additionally, the continuous flow of blood would have rendered the woman perpetually unclean according to Old Testament purity laws (Leviticus 15:25-31). She would have been an untouchable pariah, since coming into contact with her would render any person unable to enter the temple precincts and participate in the daily sacrifices and prayers. This woman was socially and spiritually isolated and at the end of her means, caught in an unfixable predicament. 

The good news for this woman was that in exhausting all of her resources, she was driven to Jesus. Out of desperate circumstances, a seemingly unlikely and improbable plan was devised—one that proved to be the only real, lasting solution to her problems. The woman decided to touch Jesus. 

The woman’s desperate circumstances produced a desperate desire to touch Jesus. Our response is often the opposite: we allow adverse circumstances to drive us to distrust God and second-guess His goodness. Are your current circumstances driving you away from Jesus, or are you allowing them to prod you toward a deeper search for Him in the midst of your circumstances?      

If you would like to hear more about God's power over the bad things that happen, we would like to gift you a sermon download from Dr. Tony Evans. Simply click here.