The Stretching of our Faith

The stories of faith throughout the Bible are as varied as the individuals involved in each story.

One of my favorite accounts in Scripture is the portrait of four friends who were filled with compassion for their sick buddy. They knew Jesus was in town so they quickly ran to see him, only to find out that the house where Jesus was visiting was packed with other hopeful guests.

What a letdown! If I was one of the four, at that moment I may have suggested to the other three friends, “Well, we gave it our best shot. Shall we head out? That being my natural resolve, I find the humor of this account fully refreshing and motivating: The friends couldn’t get to Jesus through the crowd, so they dug through the clay roof above his head. Then they lowered the sick man on his mat, right down in front of Jesus. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, “My son your sins are forgiven…” Mark 2:4

May we put ourselves in the midst of the scene for a moment? Picture yourself as one of the individuals standing with Jesus in the house that day when the clay roof was demolished. Seeing their faith? That might be an understatement by the writer, the Apostle Mark. For I am certain that within that house, every sense was engaged as the roof crumbled.

Mark could have recorded any of the following verb choices: hearing their faith, feeling their faith, dusting off the shrapnel of their faith… One thing is certain: For this band of friends to go to those extreme measures to get their friend to Jesus, they had to fully trust that He was not only capable of healing their friend, but that He was fully willing to heal their friend…and the outcome of their active faith was wholeness for this man.

This kind of bold or active faith is often foreign to many of us, at least when it comes to believing that our own woundedness could be made whole. I am grateful that God chose to record yet another story in Scripture; an occasion where Jesus was moved to heal one whose faith was too broken to be bold.

Several years ago Women of Faith speaker, Nicole Johnson, painted an incredible description of the time Jesus went into a synagogue and there hidden among the crowd of people was a man with something he was very ashamed of, something he routinely kept hidden from critical observers. It was his withered hand. With gentle assurance, Jesus asked him to stretch it out. He didn’t ask to see the man’s good hand. He asked the man to give him what was shameful, and embarrassing and humiliating.

All of us know what to do with those things in our life that are good and beautiful and perfect, but we don’t often know what to do with those things in our life that are broken. We want to hide them, despise them, and yet Jesus knows a better way: Stretch out your hand. And he did so and his hand was restored as whole as the other.

What is broken or withered in your life? Is it your marriage? It is rejection? Is it failing health?

Is it a proud, unyielding heart?

Is it an abortion?

An addiction?

An affair?

Is it something you haven’t even shared with your closest friends?

Jesus would ask you to stretch it out. Give him what you’re most ashamed of. Give him what is broken. Give Him what you despise and want to keep hidden and allow Him to make it whole. Whether our faith is bold or broken, may we stretch it out toward the One who stretched out His hands for us. For then we will know what it means to be genuinely whole.

  Anchor of Hope:  Romans 15:13   I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him.
Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.