Through Faith Our Prayers Are Answered

The woman had a problem. It was a health problem.

It was an ongoing health problem: a problem which over the past twelve years, still lingered.

She had done all she could. Doctors were visited. Specialists were consulted. Yet no cure had been found and no relief was in sight.

As a matter of fact, over the years things had gotten worse. What was she to do? What can any of us do when faced with a chronic illness?

You’ve done all you can do. Whether your problem is physical, fiscal, relational, or mental you have sort out professional help but to no avail. Proven and unproven methods have left you right where you started.

Well, the woman of whom I’m speaking, and whose story is recorded in Mark 5:25-34, suddenly heard of a source of help that could, in her mind, solve her problem.

Too often though we try everything and everyone before we resign to the fact that it’s going to take someone far more qualified than mere man.

“When she had heard of Jesus” as verse 27 records, this unnamed woman was determined to act on what she had heard.

Had she heard that Jesus was able to heal the sick and even raise the dead? Had she learned that there was something radically different about this particular Rabbi? Had she heard that this Jesus cared for the underprivileged, the downtrodden, and the dispossessed?

What she heard caused her to say in her heart: “All I need to do is get close enough to touch the hem of His garment and from there everything will be alright” (v. 28). And upon doing so, just as she believed, at that very moment, she received her healing (v. 29).

Remember God is always able to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. He can do for us what friends, relatives, or even preachers cannot do.

But have we heard that He can; and have we made any effort to act on such knowledge.

God has the solutions to all of our problems. No problem is too big for Him. As a matter of fact, He knows all about our problems before we set them before Him. He can stimulate our personal economies. He can counter inflation, remove recessions, and erase unemployment or any other personal blight.

But we must act and we must ask. Ask and it shall be given, seek and you shall find, knock and the door shall be open. God is always available and willing to do His part.

The unnamed women could have, after 12 years of suffering, given up. That she did not do. She pressed her way to Jesus and received her healing.

When we press our way Jesus believing He is well able to do abundantly more than we can imagine or conceive of, the Lord has to respond to our faith. Jesus said, speaking of His encounter with the woman in the midst of a vast crowd, “Somebody touched me.”

This tells me that everybody who inquires of God is not getting an answer because the faith needed, to tap into His power, is lacking.

The woman’s touch and our requests that are made in faith are always answered. As the woman touch the hem of the Lord’s garment, we can, through prayer, touch the heart of the Master when we go to Him in faith.

Listen to what Jesus said as He responded to the woman’s touch of faith: He exclaimed, “Who touched my clothes?”

When our faith filled prayers reaches the ears of Jesus, He has to ask, “Who prayed that prayer” (Acts 16:25-29).

Like the woman, God wants us to know, through faith, our prayers are answered. And now we, too, can, “Go in peace.”