Testifying to What God Has Done

The passage about the woman with the flow of blood shows us the magnitude of the power of God that is in Jesus Christ. With just a light—and, we might say, clandestine—touch, this woman is healed. The very moment she touches him, there is a release of God’s healing power, and the woman immediately receives the healing she needs. There was an immediate secretion in her body that sealed the place in her system where the blood was escaping.

Here we see this swift intervention by a Jesus who, we might say, did not even have this in mind. Of course, there is a mystery here concerning the wisdom, the omniscience of God so perfectly manifested in Jesus, who, in some mysterious way, was not planning to heal this woman. We do not know whether the passage is trying to emphasize that it was this woman’s faith that unleashed the power of God, but in any case, this was definitely not on the Lord’s agenda. Yet the woman’s faith unleashed it.

It is like flipping a light switch: whether we do it with a great deal of attention or very little, moving the switch’s mechanism causes energy to flow. And so I believe that faith is often something mysterious: if it is present, it will unleash the power and movement of God.

So this woman’s flow of blood stops, but there is something interesting here, isn’t there? Perhaps this woman thought she could leave anonymously. She felt that power from God invade her body, and she said to herself: I have what I wanted; now I’ll slip away and go home without anyone seeing me. But the Lord notices, and that is interesting, isn’t it?

The Lord asks in verse 45, “Who touched me?” He feels the release of power, the tremor in His body as power goes out from Him to her. This is something very beautiful, very mysterious, isn’t it?

And then the disciples’ reaction is: Well, Lord, how can You ask who touched You when we are all touching You? The crowd is pressed against You; they push You and follow You wherever You go. But He says: No, someone touched Me, because I felt power go out from Me.

Again, this idea is very interesting, isn’t it? Even when we are in a crowd, the Lord notices the movements that come from within us. Sometimes, when we are in church with many people around us, we think we are part of an anonymous mass. But we need to understand that God always notices each person’s individual worship. God’s omniscience is such that He can discern every movement of every heart in a gathering of people.

This woman’s faith set her apart. In the same way, our own faith often sets us apart from the crowd of people seeking something from God. The quality of our hearts, the persistence with which we seek the Lord, the humility we exercise, the openness we have before the Lord—all these things, the subtle and tiny movements of the human heart, God takes into account, causing us to emerge and stand out from the anonymous crowd.

The Lord noticed her because of her great faith and because she caused power to move within Him, and so the Lord seeks to make contact with this woman. I believe we see Jesus’ pastoral heart here: He wants personal contact with us.

We cannot see Him as a mechanical source of power. Rather, we must recognize Him as that personal being who loves us, who has compassion for us, who wants to speak with us, who wants to know our struggles, who wants to know the inner movements of our hearts and our lives. The Lord likes it when we come to Him and tell Him in detail about our sorrows, our joys, our dreams.

I love to pray by talking with the Lord, taking my time, informally, telling Him about everything: my dreams, my longings, my sorrows, my fears, my sins, my struggles. And I believe He likes to hear these things from us, even though He already knows all about them.

But before this woman could slip back into her anonymous life, the Lord wanted to give her three dimensions and wanted to hear from her. So, we are told, this woman explained to Him before all the people why she had touched Him. What a beautiful testimony, isn’t it?

We need to testify and speak about the things God has done in our lives, because this inspires others. If this woman had gone home anonymously, humanity would have missed one of the great expressions of the mercy, power, and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. But because the Lord called her to testify to what God had done in her, today we have this beautiful account, which inspires us and teaches us many things about the love and heart of God. God bless you, and until our next meditation.