Uncaging Father's Heart

I imagine it happening like this; one day she's fine, the next day she feels a little sore.  A little voice in her head starts to speak, "this is the age your mother started to lose her mobility you know, it won't be long for you now either."  She develops a pit in her stomach. Fear takes over.  By the end of the month she is moving noticeably slower. By the next month, she is totally bent over physically, but more so in her mind and in her Spirit.  She has lost her sense of health and mobility to a Spirit of infirmity.  A terrible thing to happen to a daughter of Abraham.  In her heart she wonders "Where is the God of my Fathers?  Where is the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob?"

Meanwhile in Jerusalem a 12 year old Jesus is sitting in the midst of the Teachers both hearing them and asking them questions.  There is something about him.... so different from the "normal" children his age.  Clearly he has a zeal for God, but he is so... strange.  He talks about God like he is his very own Father.  It's not that there is just something different about him, it seems that there is something different IN him; a presence, a Spirit that seems so familiar, yet so foreign to them all at once. His parents burst into the temple and they are quite upset.  It appears the young Rabbi-to-be neglected to inform his parents of his whereabouts so they issue a stern word of correction to him.  He goes with them, subject to them, but the boy continues to grow.

The years pass by. She becomes more resigned to her condition with each passing year.   She continues to go to the synagogue.  She doesn't understand her condition, but she finds great solace in the story of Job.  Jesus grows into a fine young man.  He learns his "father's"  trade.  He develops a reputation for honesty and integrity in the community.  Truly he grows in favor with both God and man,  but there is still that something... that strange look he gets when he see a sick person, the way his gaze turns to steel in the presence of injustice. 

As he nears 30 he starts to do strange things.  He seems less interested in the family business, and he talks more about this "Father" than ever, no matter how often he's warned of how improper that is. Eventually he ends up at the River Jordan being baptized with the rest of the religious zealots. 

That's when everything Changed forever.

The Heavens open the Spirit descend on him and a thundering voice is heard "You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased."

Not much later this woman and this Jesus Collide:

10 Now He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. 11 And behold, there was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bent over and could in no way raise herself up.12 But when Jesus saw her, He called her to Him and said to her, “Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity.” 13 And He laid His hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God.

When they tried to challenge him of the prudence of his actions, of healing on the Sabbath this was his response:

16 So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound—think of it—for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?” 17 And when He said these things, all His adversaries were put to shame; and all the multitude rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by Him.

This is the phrase that grips me and the reason for this post that one phrase;   So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound—think of it—for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?

Think  of it - 18 years.  I think it's wonderful that Jesus finally healed her, but again - think of it - 18 years.  where was God for those 18 years? What kind of a God allows 18 years of suffering?

Hebrews tell us that Jesus is the express image of the Father, that the Father was speaking to us In Jesus. What I conclude from this is that every act of Jesus reveals the Heart of the Father for the recipient of said act as well as for humanity in general.  So why did the Father decide to heal her that day, at that time, and not 18 years ago?

These are valid questions if you believe in a "Sovereign God" who is "in Control."  Maybe you even have some scripture to back up your idea that he is in fact "working all things together for Good."  I would propose to you a different understanding of this situation.  God does in fact work all things together for our good, but God for his own reason and by his own sovereign choice has decided to work through men; through our hands and through our prayers.

 I believe the Father felt that woman's pain and suffering from day 1 and he continued to feel it for 18 years.  For 18 years he WANTED to heal her, but in that first day when the sickness attacked his daughter his Father heart was trapped, halfway across Israel in Jerusalem, living on the inside of a 12 year old Jewish boy.  A boy still learning who he was and growing into who he was to become.

In my life I have prayed for sick people, and seen them healed.  I have also prayed for people and seen them remain sick; sometimes die.  That makes me sad.  Sometimes I may even be tempted to be angry at God.  I wonder why he would entrust this creation to creatures as fickle as us.  What I never do, what I refuse to do, and what I want to exhort you to do, is to never question his heart.  The Father is the one who fashioned you for his own pleasure, made you to be adored and numbered the very hairs on your head. Don't let disappointment  cloud out what you know to be true of the Father.  He's Good.  He loves you, and he was there in that dark hour, seeing what you saw feeling what you felt, and WANTING to help.  That is what I want you to take away from this post, that God's father heart has always been there, even when we don't understand what is going on and aren't able to see what is happening behind the scenes. 

I believe we are coming to a day when we grow up and learn to be more like Jesus, to represent him better.  I believe we are learning to let the Father who lives in us leak out of us.  I believe that we as his temple are learning to release his presence.  In the mean time, there are things we don't understand, do over's we wish we could have, but may never get.  In spite of all of this, the Father is still the Father.  Don't let anything tell you otherwise.