Wednesday, December 03, 2008

A leap of faith

A leap of faith. That's what they call it when we place our trust in something without having the evidence needed for certainty. The phrase has found all kinds of uses from supporting a favorite underdog to putting your money into long shot investments. Typically, it's a more negative term used by someone who can't believe that you would choose the path you've chosen without first knowing more. In the following verse, though, we find Jesus using it in a much more positive way.

34Jesus said to her, "Daughter, you took a risk of faith, and now you're healed and whole. Live well, live blessed! Be healed of your plague." Mark 5:34 MSG

The daughter refered to here is a woman who had been plagued by a medical issue for decades. Because of her condition she had been barred from normal life and the simple privileges allowed to most women of her day. With those kinds of odds, faith was all she had left. Anything to remove the plague.

Jesus rewarded her with healing. More than that, he made her the poster child for what it takes to get freedom...a risk (a leap) of faith. Therein lies the root of our bondage. The cause does not lie at the feet of a Savior who is unworthy or a God who is impotent. Rather, it lies in the heart of a people who have become too averse to leaping. Funny how Satan can convince us to reject the very path that leads to our healing.

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