Crumbs from Christ

 While our family was camping together last weekend, one of the girls snapped this photo of me reading my Bible--well, it was Tom and Rose's Bible--one morning while holding little Ellie Rose. Even babies are included in devotions! Ellie looked like she was reading, too!

Every morning Jonathan and I read or listen to the Scripture, and this morning it was about the Syro-Pheonician woman who came to Jesus asking Him to heal her daughter who was severely demon-possessed. She cried to Jesus to have mercy on her, but He didn't answer her a word.

So unlike Him. 

Yet like so many times when we pray, and He doesn't seem to pay us any attention. He doesn't answer a word.  

The disciples urged Jesus to send her away, and He told them He wasn't sent to any except the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 

Noticing that she was being talked about, the pesty woman stepped nearer and worshiped Jesus.

Do I step nearer to Him and worship Him when He is silent to me, or do I quit praying and ignore God? 

"Lord, help me!" she said again, urgently. 

The disciples had urged Jesus to send the woman away, and now she, desperate, was urging Him to help her. 

 

To whom would He listen?

"It isn't proper," Jesus said, "to take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs."

Dogs!

The woman didn't miss a beat or take offense. She accepted the comparison and had a comeback of her own. 

"Truth, Lord," she gulped, wincing at the sting but embracing the chance at humility and the possibility of being heard. "Yet, even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their master's table."  

 

We are all familiar with what happened. She had passed Jesus' test with flying colors. 

"Oh woman," Jesus said, so willing now to do what He had always been willing to do, "great is your faith! Let it be to you as you desire!"

And her daughter was healed from that hour.  

There may be times we may feel that we don't deserve even crumbs. What if we feel like such a jerk and a failure that we don't deserve even crumbs? 

The Pheonician woman's example should encourage even those of us in those shoes. 

She came. 

She cried. 

She came again.

She worshiped.

She asked.

She humbled herself.

She was heard.

She received the answer to her prayers, and her daughter was healed. 

Oh, Lord Jesus Christ, hear our own prayers tonight!

We come.

We cry to You!

We come again and again and again.

We worship You.

We ask.

We humble ourselves.

You will surely hear us.

You will grant the healing, the redemption, the restoration, the hope that we need.

Amen.