The Bible is filled with some crazy stuff. I know that. But I read something today that I hadn’t noticed before.
Side Note: (It is so cool when you read through a familiar passage of the Bible and all of a sudden you see something fresh and new about God and who He is. Or you notice a detail that you hadn’t seen before! There is one more reason why you should be reading the word of God every day…)
So anyway back to it… I was reading today about a time when Jesus was healing people. You can read about it in Luke 8:40-56. Jesus had been healing several people over the course of the last several verses and then there is this story. There is a pressing problem. So much so that the dad came to talk to Jesus personally. He came to plead with Him to come and heal his daughter.
As Jairus, the dude, is going to get Jesus and is in fact walking(maybe briskly???) back to the house with Jesus someone comes and says, “forget about it. She’s dead. Don’t waste His time.” Jesus says, Don’t be afraid, only believe and she will be made well.” So they get to the house and they dismiss everyone and Jesus says, “STOP CRYING! She’s not dead, just sleeping.”
AND THEY LAUGHED AT HIM!
The people laughed at Jesus. Can you imagine laughing in the face of God? He just got done saying, don’t be afraid, only believe and she will be well. Then the very next second Jesus says, she’s not dead, just asleep. THE PEOPLE laugh… Remember who the people are… They are the parents of the “sleeping dead” girl. I’m telling you this is odd behavior!
If I were Jesus I would be like, forget it. I’m not healing her now… Laugh at me again, see what I do. I ought to smack you from here right back into Egyptian Slavery! How did you like wandering around for 40 years, sleeping in a tent every night? Go ahead, try that on for size! PUNK!
That’s just me. Not Jesus.
Jesus says, Child arise. AND SHE DOES!
So, here’s the weird part. These people really didn’t have faith. Jesus says, believe and she’ll be fine. Yet when it comes time to believe they are so far from actually believing. They laugh! Out Loud. But He still heals the child.
After not having noticed this juicy little tid bit before, it made me wonder, and think, how much faith do I really have? Have there been times when God has whispered to me, “I am going to do ______ through you or for you”… I hope that my response isn’t laughter!
What about you? Do you have the faith to believe that God means what He says?
~Peter