In the thirty-ninth year of his reign, Asa developed a serious foot disease. Yet even with the severity of his disease, he did not seek the Lord 's help but turned only to his physicians. So he died in the forty-first year of his reign. - 2Chronicles 16: 12-13 (NLT)
Why would this be recorded for us? King Asa was not wrong for inquiring of his physicians but he was wrong in that he only inquired of them. That he did not consult the Lord at all! Sometimes we can say all the right things. Raise our hands at the right times. Play the part of obedient and faithful Christian only to turn into King Asa at the moment we need to be in even deeper with our faith. Jesus healed the blind. He healed the lame and paralyzed. He raised the dead! And after twelve long years of seeking help from the world, this woman finally reached out to God and He healed her as well.
Next, the Scripture tells us that she heard about Jesus. No doubt the stories of His miraculous healings had spread throughout the land. People were now routinely bringing Him people to heal. In fact, He is on His way to the house of Jairus, a local Synagogue Leader, whose daughter was very ill when this woman sought Him out. But hearing about Jesus was not enough. Hearing the tales of great and supernatural healing was not going to be enough to heal her. She had to seek Him out. She needed to pursue Him. As Christians we do not pursue God as fervently as we ought to, especially at the times of our greatest need.
You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. - Jeremiah 29: 13 (NIV)
The sad truth is often we try and seek God with a divided heart. We seek Him with uncertainty in our hearts about what He can do. We seek Him with irreverence in our hearts, forgetting who He is. We seek Him with hearts weighed down by the worries of this world. The Ninth Chapter of Mark's Gospel tells the story of the father who had a son possessed by a demon. The father watched his son suffer with this for his whole life. The Gospel account says he sought out the disciples first but they could not cast out the demon. By the time he stands before Jesus, this is the weak prayer he has left:
"It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us." - Mark 9: 22 (NIV)
If you can do anything? Take pity on us? It sounds incredible but how often are our prayers just as weak? How often do we doubt the God we are seeking help from? How often have we allowed the world, our friends, or our condition itself to divide our heart against the one we seek help from? Not so with the woman with the issue of blood. Maybe it was that she had finally suffered enough at the hands of others. Maybe she had finally arrived at the point of final desperation. Whatever it was - she pursued Jesus. She did not pursue Him with a "if you can do anything" attitude. No beloved, she pursued Him with a "I know I will be healed if i can just touch the hem of His garment" attitude! That is the attitude we need to have in our suffering. That is the pursuit of God we need to undertake.
Next in this story we see that she pressed in to touch Jesus. The story tells us that there was a great crowd around Jesus. So great a crowd that He could not immediately tell who had touched Him. This woman had to be determined in the face of opposition. She had to be resolute in the face of obstruction. She had to fight her way through the crowd in order to reach out and be healed by the Master. What does this teach us today in our own suffering? We cannot allow anything to come between us and God. This woman could have allowed any number of things to prevent her from being healed. Social status could have prevented her. After all she was a woman in a male dominated society. She was ceremonially unclean as well. Likewise, we too sometimes think that Jesus is too crowded or too busy to deal with our problem. Nonsense! The Bible says that He numbers the hairs on our head and even more:
