1st Week in Ordinary Time
If you wish, you can make me clean. (Mark 1:40)
Can you imagine one of your children coming to you with a problem that you could easily solve, but instead of helping, you tell him or her to “deal with it”? That’s not the response of a loving parent. Our children come to us because they trust us and are confident that we can help them out. If we are so willing to respond to them, we can only imagine how much God wants to respond to us—especially when we consider how much bigger his heart is than ours!
The leper in today’s Gospel believed this was true. He knew that no one in his village could help him. Even his friends and family had rejected him because they were frightened and repelled by his disease. Yet this man approached Jesus with complete trust and deep faith. “If you wish,” he declared, “you can make me clean” (Mark 1:40).
How could Jesus refuse? Moved with pity, he touched someone that we would probably never touch—and that touch alone was enough to heal the man. In an instant, his life was changed forever!
Does Jesus love us today any less than he loved this man? Of course not! He always wants to help us, just as any good father wants to help his children. It may be hard for us to believe that, because his help does not always come in the form we’d prefer. He doesn’t always cure our illnesses and take away our problems. Sometimes he walks through them with us so that we will come closer to him and draw strength from his presence.
No matter what his answer is, Jesus never treats us with indifference. He responds with what he knows to be best for us, even when we don’t know what that is.
Never be afraid to take your needs to Jesus. It’s one way you can develop the childlike kind of faith he wants all of us to have. After all, how can we know that we have a heavenly Father if we never step out in faith and place our trust in him?
“Lord, I praise you for your love and provision. I have nothing to fear, for as long as I seek your kingdom first, I know that you will take care of me!”
1 Samuel 4:1-11; Psalm 44:10-11, 14-15, 24-25
Daily Marriage Tip for January 16, 2014:
Winning an argument is not about proving you’re right. It’s not YOUR problem or MY problem. It’s OUR problem. Sometimes the marriage can win if you lose.