Matthew 9:20-22 tells of the woman who reaches out to touch Jesus to clear up the hemorrhage she had for the previous 12 years. This story is told in the middle of the story of the synagogue leader who had come to Jesus after his daughter had just died. Tuesday’s blog discusses the story with the synagogue leader and his act of desperation. Today’s story is also one of desperation and hope. According to Mark’s version, this woman had suffered a great deal from many doctors and had spent everything she had to pay them. This woman had gotten it into her mind that if she could just touch Jesus’ robe then everything would be OK.
Sometimes we tie big ‘miracles’ with daring acts. What was her daring act? She was considered ‘unclean’ because of the bleeding. This was a big deal especially for a rabbi or teacher in the Jewish community. There was a whole ritual that had to be performed after touching something unclean. She thought she could just slip in, touch his robe and no one would be the wiser and the act of touching Jesus was so tied up in her mind with being healed that it worked!
Let’s put this in modern terms. We have all heard of (if not actually experienced) an undiagnosed ailment. This may be a pain with no known organic reason. This could be a crippling disorder that just does not respond to medication. Whatever it is the person can see many doctors and go through all kinds of painful procedures and spend all their money and still be in pain. What our medicine fails to consider is the emotional basis of our illness.
When medicine fails there is often another reason for the illness and that is often emotional. There is a modern method that can often handle the emotional distress that is causing an illness. That is Meridian Tapping or EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques). Through the expert handling of an experienced EFT practitioner, the emotional basis of the illness can be determined and then treated with a meridian tapping technique.
For more information on Meridian Tapping or EFT, go to www.naturallyresilient.com.
Tomorrow I will cover another aspect of this story: Jesus feeling the energy going out of him.
When we lived on 68 acres, we were always losing cats. It may have been the coyotes or it may have been the mountain lion or it could have been the Owls or Falcons that surveyed the area.
We had recently lost a friendly Siamese named Mouser. I was suspicious that she might have taken a ride with some one; jumping in the back of one of the construction trucks that were constantly going in and out of our property. I was looking through the ads in the local paper to see if anyone had found a lost cat fitting her description. I saw an ad stating “Found, Female Siamese”. I called the number and a woman answered. The description she gave did not really sound much like Mouser but I thought I better check it out. She explained that she did not have the cat because her apartment would not allow animals but she always saw the cat when she and her friend went walking. She explained that the cat was always seen back behind a bank building and she usually brought it food as it was so skinny. I agreed to meet her behind the bank building the next afternoon.
The next afternoon Paul, Jesse and I showed up at the bank after banking hours. Wow! There must have been at least a 100 cats running around back there! Almost all of the cats were feral. Before too long the woman showed up. She pointed out a particular cat to me and with a little coaxing and some tempting food the cat came up. It was not Mouser.
The woman was so concerned about this cat and was so insistent that I take it so I could at least take it to the pound the next day. She would have done that but she never saw the cat except at night and she could not keep the cat overnight at her apartment and risk getting thrown out. I was just amazed that she had zeroed in on this one cat when there were a hundred running around us out there!
We took the cat but I had no intention of taking it to the pound, I just don’t work that way. The next morning we took it to our vet to get shots and to be spayed. I asked them to board her over the weekend as we had a camping trip planned and I would pick her up Monday morning.
Monday morning I brought Misty home. I opened the cat carrier and she came out. Harry had to come up and investigate and Misty promptly hissed at Harry. For the rest of the day Harry went around the house hissing. He hissed at anyone walking across the floor, he hissed at the vacuum cleaner, he hissed at anything that was out of place. He had learned a new word and had to try it out. Unfortunately this also set the tone for their relationship, they have never been good friends and are barely on speaking terms.
Desperation Leads to Answered Prayers
Posted by: Ann
August 17th, 2010 >> Bible, Energy, God, Manifesting
Matthew 9:18 starts the story of the synagogue leader who had a little girl that was not just dying but was dead! She had just died and in his panic and desperation he sought out Jesus. This was a daring act on his part as he was a leader and people looked up to him. Like famous people nowadays this man had a high up position and was in the limelight, at least in his area. Jesus had an uneasy relationship with the synagogue leaders, they were not too sure of him at this time and you might say he was under scrutiny. Maybe this was why this father did not come sooner but waited with hope that his daughter would improve. Maybe he was in denial, but then the unthinkable happened, she died. But in his panic this father knew that if any man could help, Jesus could.
Desperation is a very powerful emotion. This is the emotion that provides strength to a woman so she can lift a car off her child. Desperation is a strong emotion to put into prayer. The stronger the emotion the faster the prayer is answered. The answer may come as an idea that pops into your head like this father all of a sudden thinking of getting Jesus or it may actually cause something to materialize (the item may have always been there but you may not have ever noticed it before).
Desperation can cause us to act in ways we would not normally act. When desperate, we may appear to act irrationally which is what the mourners at the girls house thought of the father’s actions. They ridiculed him when he came back with Jesus. The girl was dead, they knew what death looked like. During this timeframe and society people were quite familiar with death. But desperation causes irrational acts, it causes people to take chances and sometimes those risks pay off.
Matthew 9:2-8 is another healing story but I think it has an interesting twist. A paralyzed man was brought to Jesus and “Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, ‘Take heart, son! Your sins are forgiven.’”
Two things I want to point out, first who had the faith? It says seeing ‘their’ faith. Was this the faith of the men who brought the paralyzed man to Jesus or did this include the paralyzed man’s faith. I doubt that the paralyzed man had much if any say in where his friends took him so it may have just been the faith of the friends that Jesus could heal their friend. To me this says that the faith of another can help someone else. This is where prayers for someone else can be beneficial.
The second twist was the change in wording from what Jesus usually said. The usual phrase Jesus used in healing was ‘your faith has healed you’, but here he says ‘your sins are forgiven’.
Many illnesses are caused by our emotional state. I have seen many emotional problems manifest in physical form. It is often our emotional state knocking us in the head to get our attention but we still ignore them because our society and culture has so disjointed ourselves into compartments that don’t mix. We have doctors for the physical, psychologist for the mental and priest for the spiritual crisis. But a crisis in any one of these can cause changes and problems in one or two of the others. We are all tied together, we are not three different elements (body, mind and spirit) separated but one being that integrates all three.
This man may have been going through a spiritual crisis over some action that he could not move past and his body was accommodating this crisis by freezing or paralyzing his body so he could not physically move forward. By releasing and forgiving the event that sent him into the spiritual crisis the body followed suit and released the paralysis!
I like to meditate. It gives me peace and gets my day off to a great start. I have had many people ask “How do you meditate” in fact that was a question I asked myself when I first started out.
Many people especially those new to meditating do not realize that you can meditate anywhere and any time. I came across a nifty little book called The Meditation Bible: The Definitive Guide to Meditations for Every Purpose (… Bible)
Meditation is a relaxing way to experience your inner self, it is a step toward conscious living. It is a must for anyone seeking enlightenment in this heavy, dark physical world.
I have been thinking a lot about free will lately. That term has always confused me in the way it is used in theology but I think I am finally making sense of the term with my investigation of the ‘law of attraction’ and manifesting.
Let’s review; we are spiritual beings who are basically made of energy. If you look at the smallest physical particle of matter then look deeper past the atom past the electron you will finally get to pure energy and that is what everything is including you and me.
Since the only thing that truly exist is energy what are our thoughts? Energy of course.
Our thoughts go out and solidify into substance. The more energy (passion, effort or even continual thought) you put into something the faster it will solidify and materialize.
How does this relate to free will? You are free to think what you want, free to experience the emotions you want. You are free to send out your thoughts and create whatever you wish. This free will perpetuates itself because what you think the most about will draw those experiences and things to you to reinforce those thoughts. So you create your life through your thoughts and your free will. God wants you to use your free will otherwise God would not have given it to you.
This is a case of be careful what you wish for (or think about). When you dwell on the negative in your life you create more of it.
This is where free will gets sticky and the theological idea of “Your will not mine” comes into play. I firmly believe that God wants us to live a passionate life, one that is true to who we really are. If we are in alignment with who we truly are, then we are in alignment with God’s will. We often get sidetracked about who we are. We often insist that we are helpless, or a victim, or miserable because we have bought into what someone in the past told us or you have let a past experience tell you that is who you are now. No that was who you were then. Each moment is a different choice and you get to choose.
I have a stack of books by my bed that I am reading on. Some nights I feel like something fun and light, other times I want something motivating, and sometimes I want to read cutting edge information. Often the pile of books will contain many repeats, these are books that I have read before but in my Sunday Book reviews I remember how much I liked the book and I will start reading it again.
I have been rereading Norman Vincent Peale’s book You Can If You Think You Can.
Using ‘Creative Anticipation’ is a wonderful method for manifesting. It was one that I had forgotten about. To practice this, you anticipate receiving what you want then you start thinking of all the ways it could possibly come to you. Be outlandish if you want. Think of everything. Your thoughts will be so concentrated on receiving and how it will be brought to you that you will not have any room to consider whether it will happen. This is not where you try to figure out how you will accomplish the task. No, this is opening yourself up to receiving what the Universe will bring you.
Give it a try and let me know of the results.
This story is not for the squeamish or for those who want the reassurance that no animals were hurt in the making of this story.
I have mentioned our 15 foot bat wing mower before and how the mice and rabbits would run when they heard it coming. Well apparently one creature feels bold enough to tackle anything that comes its way including a large hunk of metal.
Paul had mowed the field one Saturday and Sunday we went to church. Coming home after church we noticed some vultures circling in the field. We drove the car over to the spot and saw a rattlesnake chopped up into sausage length pieces! I guess the vultures thought it was a rattle snack!
I think the rattlesnake had more brawn than brain. Maybe when you are a snake and especially a poisonous one, you are use to getting your way. But attacking the bottom of a bat-wing mower is a little more than the brawniest creature can handle. So in this case it is good to be timid and run from the noise. Or maybe it is good to be a vulture.
This is the story where Jesus cast demons out of two men. The demons enter a herd of pigs and the herd runs down the steep hillside and drowns in the lake. The herdsmen FLED to the nearby city and told everyone what happened. The ENTIRE town came out to meet this Jesus but instead of praising him for helping the two men, they beg him to go away and leave them alone.
Note the words and the event. The herdsmen “fled” to the nearby town. Fled has a special connotation. It means they are fleeing from something, it implies fear. The “entire” town came out, this can mean all kinds of things, the first thing that pops into mind is safety in numbers which is again a fear mentality. Then the people beg him to go away. Sounds like fear again.
How many times do we reject something because we are afraid? Think of what all we miss; the opportunities, the possibilities, the learning; all because we are afraid. What did the town miss out on because of their fear? They missed out on many more miracles and some great enlightening sermons.
What were they afraid of? It could have been economic disaster. The loss of a herd of pigs probably did set someone back economically. But what would have become of that person if he had invited Jesus to come to his house?
Sometimes when uncertainty hits, whether it is economic or health or relationships, we get stuck in the now and don’t look at the possibilities or the bigger picture. We lose sight of the miracles.
What does fear have to do with manifesting? Lots! Fear is the biggest impediment to manifesting that I know of. Fear prevents you from seeing the open doors, fear can lead to depression and anxiety. To manifest you must be optimistic and believe in a fabulous outcome and fear prevents this. Fear causes you to focus on the material, as the towns people did, and not see the fabulous miracle in front of you.
When things seem to be going against you, turn your thoughts around and start to look for the good and the promising and replace the fear with hope and faith that a better future is possible.
These verses talk about Jesus sleeping in the boat when a storm comes up and the disciples panic and wake Jesus up. Jesus says “Why are you afraid? You have so little faith!”. Then he rebuked the wind and waves and calms the water. The disciples were amazed.
There are several things I want to point out in this. First Jesus asks why are they afraid and comments on their lack of faith. This applies to life in general. Let’s make this more personal. What are you afraid of? If you have a fear in your life the second question applies. Where is your faith?
Faith involves a trust that you will be ok, that you will be taken care of and it even goes beyond that to believing that the best possible outcome will occur. Faith is required in manifesting. You have to believe that what you want to occur will occur, in fact you have to believe or know that what you expect to occur will happen. You have to do more than want, you have to expect. You may want something but expect something else to happen. Your want and your expectation must be in congruence.
The second thing is that Jesus calmed the water. When you have Faith, the turmoil in life will calm. When you put your total trust and believe in a great outcome, the troubles you are in will seem smaller.
There is actually a more practical side to these verses. Jesus implies that if the disciples had faith, they could calm the waters. We don’t realize what power we have. This is where I will get a little weird for some of you. We can control the weather. All the turmoil in the world contributes a large part to the turmoil in the weather along with earthquakes and volcanoes.
When my son was younger, we would sit on the swings and call up rain clouds. Sometimes it would take a couple days when there was no clouds and we were in the middle of a drought, but they would come. I quit doing it because it gave me a headache. Jesse however did it with ease. Try it yourself.