Going the Extra Mile

Many times, the life of faith depends on an attitude of valiant, militant effort, on daring to do things that are out of the ordinary, outside the norm. There are times when we have to do unconventional things, and we have to dare, in the name of the Lord, believing that if we take the plunge in the name of the Lord, He will be powerful enough not to allow us to be put to shame.

And Scripture is full of these individuals who persist, as it were, who are endowed with a desperate energy that drives them beyond the conventional, and it is that degree of effort that sets them apart from the ordinary and causes God, so to speak, to take notice of them. Notice that this woman is surrounded by people who are crowding the Lord and pressing against the person of Jesus. And yet it says that when this woman touched Jesus’ cloak, power immediately went out from the Lord, and the Lord asked, “Who touched Me?”

And the disciples are surprised by the question because they say, “Lord, but everyone is touching You; this crowd is surging around You and pressing You on every side. How can You ask who touched You? Everyone has touched You.” The touch that had reached Him was a distinctive touch; it was something out of the ordinary. And it is precisely that touch that we must ask the Lord to help us find in our lives—that energy which rises from the very depths of our being and leads us into the very Presence of the Lord.

It is almost a kind of spiritual warfare. It is something wonderful that honors God and also honors us. The Lord is pleased, and it is something difficult to explain, but just as a father is pleased when his child does something unusual and unconventional that reveals something of the child’s character, or of the love the child has for the father, or the trust the child places in the father, so too God reacts like a father when we, His children, do unusual or unconventional things that show that we believe Him, that we love Him, that we know He is real and has feelings with which we can identify.

And so that tells the Father, “This person takes You seriously,” and that flatters Him and motivates Him. Those are the rules of faith, and that is what this woman does. She has that distinctive touch and that effort, that valiant attitude that we see, for example, in the Syrophoenician woman who approaches the Lord Jesus Christ and asks Him to intervene on behalf of her demon-possessed daughter. And at first the Lord rejects her and says, “No, I cannot attend to you because you come from another nation, and I have been called to attend to the sheep of Israel.”

And this woman persists, and the Lord answers her with what is almost an insult. He says to her, “You know, it is not right to give the children’s food to the little dogs.” He is saying that this non-Jewish woman belongs to an unclean race. But this woman refuses to be discouraged or offended by Jesus’ apparently insulting refusal, and she answers Him with a response that, as it were, binds the Lord. She says, “Yes, Lord, You say that it is not right to give the children’s food to the little dogs, but even the little dogs have the right to eat the crumbs that fall from the table.”

Interestingly, this woman takes the image Jesus uses and performs a kind of spiritual judo with it, pinning the Lord against the wall. She says, “Yes, but what about this interpretation of what You are saying?” The Word says that the Lord, marveling at her faith—I imagine that He smiled and perhaps even laughed at that moment over this woman’s clever reply—said, “You know what, woman? Great is your faith. Because of that word, your daughter is delivered from her affliction.” The Bible says that at that very moment her daughter was delivered from the demon that was tormenting her.

How wonderful that this woman persists and strives; her desperation gives her an extraordinarily keen ingenuity, and she finds the precise word that unleashes the merciful action of Jesus Christ. Think of Zacchaeus, who climbs a tree because he wants to see Jesus and does something extraordinary, something out of the ordinary. This man was an official feared by the people, a lonely, powerful man, perhaps oppressive and abusive, who held power on behalf of the Roman government. But without thinking about his own public dignity, he climbs that tree so that he can see comfortably, because he was a man of short stature, and he arouses Jesus’ interest when He sees him up there in that tree.

He says to him, “Zacchaeus, come down from that tree. It is important that you and I have dinner together today,” because the Lord sees Zacchaeus’ hunger and his effort to speak with Him.

And so, time and again, we could spend a great deal of time here exploring different people who stand out because of that quality of striving, of going beyond the basic effort and putting themselves at risk, making fools of themselves, and bringing upon themselves the opposition and insults of the crowd because they long to see the Lord and touch Him, and to receive from Him the answer they so desperately need.

May the Lord bring us to that level of living. That is what we ask God each day: “Lord, make us intense believers; make us militant, valiant, daring believers who always live the Christian life at that level of intensity.” And this woman with the flow of blood is a wonderful, memorable figure who invites us into that kind of intense life—a life that believes the Lord and dares to go beyond the ordinary.

I hope this will be a blessing to you, and let us continue with our reflections on the woman with the flow of blood. God bless you. Roberto Miranda bids you farewell, and until next time.

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