Well, they were saying that he was very nervous yesterday, and he said he was also very nervous this morning. I think it is good for those who have some responsibility in sharing the things of the Lord that we do get nervous, so that we do not rely on our own gifts, talent, or ability. We need to get nervous and really turn our hearts and our trust to the Lord.
Let us turn to two important Scriptures. First, the Gospel of Mark—a very familiar story. Actually, two stories interwoven into one story.
Mark 5:21
When Jesus had again crossed over by boat unto the other side,
a great multitude was gathered unto Him: and He was by the sea.
And there cometh one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name;
and seeing Him, he falleth at His feet,
and beseecheth Him much, saying,
My little daughter is at the point of death:
I pray Thee, that Thou come and lay Thy hands on her,
that she may be made whole, and live.
And He went with him;
and a great multitude followed Him, and they thronged Him.
And a woman, which had an issue of blood twelve years,
and had suffered many things of many physicians,
and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse,
having heard the things concerning Jesus, came in the crowd behind, and touched His garment.
For she said, If I touch but His garments, I shall be made whole.
And straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up;
and she felt in her body that she was healed of her plague.
And straightway Jesus, perceiving in Himself that the power proceeding from Him had gone forth,
turned Him about in the crowd, and said, Who touched My garments?
And His disciples said unto Him, Thou seest the multitude thronging Thee, and sayest Thou, Who touched Me?
And He looked round about to see her that had done this thing.
But the woman fearing and trembling, knowing what had been done to her,
came and fell down before Him, and told Him all the truth.
And He said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole;
go in peace, and be whole of thy plague.
While He yet spake, they come from the ruler of the synagogue’s house, saying,
Thy daughter is dead: why troublest thou the Teacher any further?
But Jesus, not heeding the word spoken, saith unto the ruler of the synagogue,
Fear not, only believe.
And He suffered no man to follow with Him,
save Peter, and James, and John the brother of James.
And they come to the house of the ruler of the synagogue;
and He beholdeth a tumult, and many weeping and wailing greatly.
And when He was entered in, He saith unto them,
Why make ye a tumult, and weep? The child is not dead, but sleepeth.
And they laughed Him to scorn.
But He, having put them all forth, taketh the father of the child and her mother
and them that were with Him, and goeth in where the child was.
And taking the child by the hand, He saith unto her, Talitha cumi;
which is, being interpreted, Damsel, I say unto thee, Arise.
And straightway the damsel rose up, and walked; for she was twelve years old.
And they were amazed straightway with a great amazement.
And He charged them much that no man should know this;
and He commanded that something should be given her to eat.
Let us turn to another passage, Isaiah 45.
Isaiah 45:3
And I will give thee the treasures of darkness,
and hidden riches of secret places,
that thou mayest know that I, the Lord,
who call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel.
Many people think that the Lord is doing many works. In one sense, that is true. But actually, the Lord has that one work, and He is doing that one work all the time: that the Lord Jesus may have that central place in all things.
In all His dealings with us, He is bringing us to that place—that His Son may be all in all in our lives, individually as well as corporately. God’s work, God’s heart, never deviates from that goal. He has set His heart on that.
So, in all His dealings with us, He brings us into that place of complete union with Him in life, that Christ may be all in all.
But the way He does this often mystifies us. We think we should go upward to reach Christ, but oftentimes the Lord takes us in just the opposite direction, because treasures are to be found in darkness, and riches are to be found in secret places.
Things that are common are exposed and can be readily seen. Things that are of great value are oftentimes hidden. That is why, in Isaiah, it mentions that God is a God who hides Himself. He is our treasure, and we have to seek Him in order to find Him.
Therefore, as our brother shared the other day, there is a costly way to enter into the fullness of Christ.
Dr. S. H. Scroggie, in his book on Bible knowledge, put it this way: in the Book of Genesis, we discover the principle of God’s election—Abraham was called. In the Book of Exodus, we discover the principle of how God brought these chosen people to Himself.
But that is not all. When you come to the Book of Leviticus, God had chosen these people and brought these people to Himself with one aim in mind: to bring them into communion with Him and into union with Him.
Therefore, in the Book of Leviticus, we have all the sacrifices and ordinances. These are the ways and means by which we can be brought into complete union and communion with God. We are chosen people, and we are brought to Him—not merely to be satisfied ourselves, but to be united with Him.
We may be satisfied, but God is not satisfied. He wants us to come into such a relationship with Him that there will be union and communion. Then we can move on. So the next book, Numbers, is their journey onward to God’s purpose.
I hope we can learn some lessons from the story we have just read in Mark. This man, in some translations, is described as a ruler of the synagogue. He was in a desperate situation: his daughter was dying.
Now, of course, brothers and sisters, many of us will not come to the Lord until we are desperate. If we have a way out, we take it. It is when all the options are gone, when we have no other way to go and no other door available, that we turn to Christ. That is our condition.
And that is how He deals with us. He knows what He is doing, and His way is oftentimes the best. Jairus was put in such a situation, but the problem with us is that we are problem-oriented people. We come to the Lord to solve our problem without realizing that He is using these problems to bring us to Himself.
As our brother said, all these problems and obstacles can become ways of entering into the fullness of Christ. It all depends on how we look at them. Do we look at the problems through Christ, or do we look at Christ through the problems? Am I making myself clear here? Maybe I get myself mixed up.
So many of us look at the problems and make them bigger than Christ. But, brothers and sisters, we need to refocus our sight. Christ is bigger than anything and everything.
Jairus had a problem—a desperate problem—and all he could think of was his dying daughter. In desperation, he came to the Lord Jesus and pleaded earnestly, saying, “My daughter is dying.”
When you are brought into such a situation, you are in a different emotional state. If you read the three Gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—you can see that the descriptions are not quite the same. In Matthew, it says she was dead; in Mark, she was at the point of death; and in Luke, she lay dying. You can see the emotional state Jairus was in: a desperate situation.
Yet he came to the Lord to ask for help. The interesting thing is that the name Jairus is very meaningful. If you look in a Bible dictionary, Jairus means “the enlightened one.” No one can come to the Lord Jesus without being enlightened.
Who enlightens anyone? This world is dark, and it is getting darker and darker. The prince of this world has blinded everyone. We have no sight; we have no way of seeing anything. Yet this man, Jairus, means “the enlightened one.” Apparently, he was a godly man, a God-fearing man.
Somehow, in his spirit and in his heart, God enlightened him, and he saw something about this Man, Jesus. He saw that He was a unique Man. In his desperate situation, he knew there was no one else he could turn to but this one Man—the Man who stands out among all men.
For a ruler of the synagogue to come to the Lord Jesus for help was not a popular thing to do in that day. The religious system was against the Lord Jesus. So, when Jairus came, he laid aside his religious position and standing.
In contrast, there was another ruler, Nicodemus. Nicodemus dared not come to the Lord Jesus during the day; he came at night. Nicodemus means “victor of the people,” or “conqueror of men.” Yet his life was contrary to his name, because he was afraid of what people thought of him.
But Jairus was enlightened, and he came in the day. The Bible says that when it is day, we can walk; when night comes, no one can walk. Jairus was enlightened to know that the Lord Jesus is the way. There is no other way; He is the truth and the life.
Though it was not popular, Jairus came because he was desperate. The Lord responded to his sincerity and pleading for help. If you look at the account in Matthew, in the older translation it says, “He arose and followed him.”
As I read through the account in Matthew 9, I was struck by that particular phrase: the Lord Jesus arose and followed him. As I looked in my concordance, that was the only occasion I could find where the Lord was said to follow someone. Perhaps I am wrong, but it is recorded that He arose and followed him.
On many occasions, the Lord was the One who called people to follow Him. Multitudes followed Him; the disciples followed Him. He called them to follow Him. He said, “If anyone would come after Me, let him take up his cross and follow Me.” Some even came voluntarily, saying, “I will follow You.”
But that phrase stuck with me: “The Lord arose and followed him.” I began to understand a little why the Lord arose and followed Jairus. The Lord knew that the journey they were about to take together would not be an easy one. It was as though the Lord said, “I will be behind you. If I am behind you, we will make it.”
Oftentimes, we hear messages that the Lord is leading us, that He is in front of us. But we forget that sometimes He follows us. He is in front of us, but He is also behind us. That is a precious thought.
You recall, even in the Old Testament, when the Israelites came out of Egypt. In Exodus 14:19, it says:
And the angel of God, who went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them;
and the pillar of cloud removed from before them, and stood behind them.
He opened a way for them to come out of Egypt and to cross the Red Sea, but He also came behind them and followed them. He was with them.
When Jairus came to the Lord Jesus, I do not know how many miles he traveled, but I would imagine he came very quickly—at human supersonic speed—because his daughter was dying. I imagine that when he fell at the Lord’s feet, he was out of breath.
But Jairus thought the return journey would be a journey of hope. He thought they would quickly return home, the Lord would touch his child, and she would be raised. He expected that at the end there would be something beautiful: his child restored.
But according to the account, that returning journey was a slow, long march—obstacle after obstacle. It became a journey of despair, a great despair. As Jairus journeyed home, it became darker and darker, and hope was lost.
Yet the one consolation for Jairus was that the Lord arose and followed him. Jairus was in front, but the Lord was behind. Ordinarily, when you follow someone, who sets the pace—the person in front or the one at the back? Usually, it is the one in front. If he walks fast, you follow fast; if he slows down, you slow down.
But in this case, even though Jairus was in front, he had no way of setting the pace. The Lord set the pace. When He stopped, they stopped; when He went, they went. The Lord took charge of the situation. It was as though He was saying, “I will follow you through.”
I was greatly comforted by that thought. The Lord says, “I follow you all the way. I follow you through.”
The journey of hope turned into a very long journey of disruption and obstacles. As Jairus journeyed home, his heart sank lower and lower.
The first obstacle was the huge crowd pressing around the Lord Jesus. Those who have been to the old country know what the streets and alleys are like. They are not like Richmond, with its superhighways and good roads. They are winding alleys and narrow roads. There were not only people, but animals as well.
I remember when I took a trip to China: wherever you turned, you saw people. You did not see the street; you saw people. To find your way through that crowd was almost impossible.
Jairus knew that his daughter was dying, and this huge crowd was pressing around the Lord Jesus. Can you imagine what went through his heart? Timing was a factor. If they did not hurry back home, perhaps it would be too late—perhaps it was already too late.
The amazing thing is that the Lord knew how desperate Jairus was, yet He did not do anything about the crowd. If I were Jairus, I do not know what I would do. I would probably scream and shout. If I did not say anything to the Lord Jesus, at least I would say something to the crowd: “Can you understand why I came here? My daughter is dying. Please, do not block our way. Let us get through.”
But Jairus remained silent. If you read the account, you only know that he spoke at the beginning, when he fell at the Lord’s feet and pleaded with Him. From that moment to the very end, you do not hear him utter one word.
To me, that is humanly impossible. There were many occasions when he had a legitimate right to complain and say something, but he remained silent.
The reason he was able to remain calm, I think, was that whenever he looked back, that Man, Jesus, was still behind him. That was all. “I will not leave you, nor forsake you.” Every time Jairus looked back in desperation, he saw that the Lord was still with him.
What is in front of us, we do not know. But when we look back, He is behind us. That is why the Lord arose and followed him. If the Lord had not followed Jairus, he would have fainted along the way. He would have been in total despair.
But the Lord was behind him, supporting him and encouraging him, whispering words of comfort. Brothers and sisters, it is good to fix our eyes on the Lord Jesus. But do not forget: when we fix our eyes on Him, oftentimes we lose sight of Him because things come between us. Crowds come between us, and it is so easy to lose sight of Him.
But thank God, when we lose sight of Him, we can look back and hear Him say, “I am still behind you.” That is our Lord.
The next obstacle they encountered was this woman who had an issue of blood for twelve years. She was also in a very desperate situation. I am sure she thought she was dying too.
She had this disease for twelve years. Mark tells us that she consulted doctor after doctor and spent all she had. Instead of getting better, she grew worse. So, in desperation, she came to the Lord Jesus.
She came with one aim, that is all—single-heartedly. She said, “If I can only touch Him, that changes everything.” We will touch on that later.
How she managed to come to the Lord Jesus, we do not know. Apparently, she was a very sickly and weak person. But somehow, because of her determination to come to the Lord Jesus, she used every ounce of her strength to get closer and closer to that Man. Somehow, she touched Him, and when she touched Him, something happened.
Someone said that faith—true faith, living faith—makes demands upon God. She came with faith, with one heart, one purpose, and one aim: to touch that One. “I know I will be healed.” That faith drew power from the Lord Jesus. Power was released from Him, and instantly her issue of blood was healed.
Now, the obstacle before Jairus and the Lord was that, after this sister was healed, the Lord said, “Who touched Me?” The Lord wanted to single her out. When she came before the Lord, fell at His feet, and trembled with fear, she knew she could not hide any longer.
When she first came, she thought that if she simply touched His garment and was healed, she could slip away unnoticed. That was her purpose. But the Lord would not allow that to happen. He said, “Who touched Me?” The Lord had a purpose.
Many came to the Lord Jesus without any purpose. They looked at His face and His eyes, but they never touched Him. But this woman, in desperation, never had a chance to see His face. She simply touched His garment, and she was cured.
She could not hide any longer, and the Scripture says that she told Him the whole truth: twelve years of suffering, twelve years under the care of many doctors, growing worse and worse, and having spent all she had. Brothers and sisters, that was a long testimony to share.
Especially with that curious crowd, I am sure her testimony drew an even larger crowd, because it was an amazing story. But that delayed the desperate journey Jairus was hoping would quickly take him home. The obstacle was right there in front of him. They could not move. The Lord stood there and listened to this lengthy testimony from their sister.
Here was another occasion when Jairus could obviously have said something. If that were us, perhaps we would say, “Sister, please make it brief, so we can carry on—or save it for another time.” We do that in our assemblies, do we not? When a brother or sister has a lengthy testimony, somebody may say, “Brother, I think it is time to make it brief.”
But the Lord did not mind. The Scripture says she told the whole story. How long it took, we do not know. Jairus just took it, knowing that his daughter was dying. It is hard to imagine what went through his heart.
But every time doubts arose, somehow he looked back, and that Man was behind him again. The Lord was still behind him.
Brothers and sisters, when we go down and down, we often use the expression, “We are hitting the bottom.” I do not know exactly what that means. Do we mean that it is the end of everything, that we cannot go any further down?
The problem is this: when we say we have hit the bottom, our bottoms are often false bottoms. We go through them.
As we go with Jairus through this journey, he hit many bottoms and went down, down, down, until he reached the real bottom. We will touch that in a moment.
As they moved on, bad news came. The report came from home, saying, “Your daughter is now dead. Why bother the Teacher anymore?” If you say he had hit bottom, that was the bottom.
Then the Lord spoke. There was a word: “Do not be afraid; just believe.” In Mark, the NIV says that the Lord, ignoring the report, spoke to Jairus.
Now, that is difficult. Who sees the facts—the Lord or Jairus? The report was that Jairus’s daughter was dead, but the Lord said, “Believe, and do not be afraid.”
The Lord’s words sometimes are hard to believe. Sometimes we think His words are almost unbelievable. But it is true, because we see only part of the picture, while the Lord sees the whole thing. We see what is immediate; the Lord sees the total picture.
The Lord ignored the report and told Jairus, “Do not be afraid; just believe.” In fact, the Lord was ignoring death, because death is a stranger to the Lord. Death was very real to Jairus, but it was no threat to the Lord Jesus.
The question was not whether Jairus could believe the report. The question was whether Jairus could ignore what the Lord ignored and believe. I believe there was a real struggle within him. But at this point, Jairus had no more options left. It was all over.
So the only hope he had was to stick with the Lord Jesus and see what would happen at the very end. And he did. He remained silent. Words were useless. What was there to say? It was gone.
The Lord often brings us to a place where there is no option left for us, especially in this country, where we always say, “I have the right to choose.” Often we choose the wrong thing. I thank the Lord that He is the way, and there is no other way. No more options—take it or leave it.
That is a great blessing, brothers and sisters, because He knows that we do not know how to choose wisely. Therefore, He chose the way wisely. That is Christ’s greatness.
The report was very difficult for Jairus to take in, and the Lord said, “You just believe in Me.” It was very difficult. But what else could he do? Reason said, “There is no hope, no hope.” But the heart said, “Hang on there, hang on there.”
Here says, “Give it up, give it up,” but He says, “Stick it out, stick it out. Do not be afraid; just believe. I am behind you. I am behind the whole thing.” Because of that, Jairus was able to remain quiet and not say anything.
The last obstacle was that, when they arrived home, they discovered the scene: commotion, crying, and the loud wailing of the people. I was told that in Jewish tradition, when someone died, professional mourners were hired to cry with the family.
Apparently, when they arrived home, relatives and friends were already preparing for the burial. When you read the Gospel account, that seems to be what was happening.
The Lord said, “Why all this commotion?” And He said, “The child is not dead, but asleep.” Everything the Lord said seemed to be totally contrary—the exact opposite of what they saw with their naked eyes.
When Jairus came home, everything looked bad. What he saw was bad. But through all this, you can see that the Lord was in charge of the entire situation.
He asked those doubters to get out. He removed all the unbelieving party from the situation. Then He took the child’s father and mother, together with His three disciples, into the child’s room and raised her up.
As Jairus traveled home, his heart sank lower and lower. When he encountered the crowd, he may have thought, “That is it—no more chance.” Then the woman with the twelve-year issue of blood delayed them. Again, he thought he had reached the bottom, but that bottom fell through to another bottom.
He kept going down and down until the Lord came into the situation, removed all the doubters, and raised the child. To me, that was when Jairus really reached the bottom. When he hit that bottom, he could not go down any further.
Brothers and sisters, the Lord wants us to get down to Himself. The Lord is the solid rock. When we go down and down, all the human supports fall through until we come to the real bottom—the Rock, the solid Rock, Christ Jesus. That is the real bottom.
Oftentimes, the Lord has to bring us into that situation. An elderly brother once put it this way: when he was young, he thought all God’s gifts and riches were on shelves above one another. As you grew taller spiritually, you could reach all those nice gifts.
But as he grew older in the Lord, he discovered that all the riches of Christ were on shelves beneath one another. As you go lower and lower, you discover the real treasures that are down there.
Jairus’s journey was simply a journey of going down and down, because the Lord had a treasure He wanted him to discover. That treasure was Himself. Jairus went down, down, down, and finally discovered the Lord.
Now I want you to turn to one verse in Deuteronomy.
Deuteronomy 33:27
The eternal God is thy dwelling-place,
and underneath are the everlasting arms.
Let us register those two phrases: “The eternal God is thy dwelling-place,” and “underneath are the everlasting arms.”
I am a latecomer to Bible study. I was not fortunate to have seminary education like some others, and I am not very good at such things. But I do have a few concordances and books that I can look into. I understand that this word underneath is mentioned only once in Scripture, and in Hebrew it means “bottom.”
At the real bottom, you find what? The everlasting arms. Go back and look at what underneath means in Hebrew. From what I have read in the dictionary, it is “bottom.” If you look in Young’s concordance, you will find that it means the lowest part—the place underneath the bottom. You cannot go any further.
In other words, you touch bedrock. You touch the real foundation. You touch the end. Yet, from a spiritual point of view, when you touch the end, you touch the beginning, because Christ is the beginning and Christ is also the last. When you touch Him, He brings you to the beginning.
That was what Jairus discovered, and his daughter lived.
That is the way the Lord deals with many of us, particularly with some brothers and sisters in our area who have recently suffered a great deal. There are many problems, and we do not know how they came about. Sometimes there seems to be no hope.
Yet we discover that when we hit the bottom, we hit the Lord Himself, and we rise up again. There is resurrection, and though we were dead, we live again.
That has been part of some of our experience in recent weeks. We think that life is always going to become brighter and brighter, but oftentimes it becomes dark. Isaiah says that treasures are to be found in darkness, and riches are in hidden places.
Jairus’s journey home was a journey of long despair, but in the end the Lord was there, and life was given. When he touched the bottom, life was restored.
So this word underneath means the bottom. When you hit the bottom, the Lord says, “My hands are there, and I will lift you up.”
Now, this woman who had the issue of blood for twelve years came to the Lord and touched Him. I will just touch on this a little bit.
According to the Mosaic Law, this woman was ceremonially unclean. She was cut off from the rest of the people of Israel and from the privilege of going to the temple to worship and offer sacrifices. She was unclean, and an unclean person could not approach the holy place.
If she was married, most likely she would have been abandoned by her husband, because she was unclean. Anyone who touched her, or anything she touched, also became unclean. She was rejected as an outcast, and she lived that life for twelve years, getting weaker and weaker in great agony.
But she had one thing in her mind: she had heard something about the Lord Jesus, and she was willing to come and try Him. She came and cast herself upon His mercy, hidden in the crowd.
As I said before, when she came, she had one thing in mind: just to be healed. “When I touch Him and He heals me, I will slip away unnoticed.” This isolated way of living was not new to her; she had been isolated for too long. For her to readjust to the crowd would have been difficult.
Twelve years of complete isolation. She thought, “If I can just touch Him and be healed, I will slip away unnoticed by anyone.” But the Lord noticed her. He would not let her get away so quickly.
You remember, when she came, she came from behind. But when the Lord called her, she came and stood—or knelt—right before Him.
In a sense, this woman also hit the bottom. If you read the Gospel account, she really did. For twelve years, she spent all she had and consulted all the doctors. Instead of getting better, she grew worse and worse. Where could she turn?
If you say she hit the bottom, she had certainly hit the bottom. But thank God, she came to the real bottom—the big Rock, the solid Rock, the Lord Jesus. She touched Him, and she was cured. She was made whole instantly.
Then the Lord said, “Who touched Me?” When the Lord was looking for her, she knew she could not hide herself any longer. The Lord was very selective. He wanted that particular person.
In a sense, the Lord was teaching all of us. All those people were pressing around the Lord Jesus, and many were physically touching Him. That is true. So the disciples said, “Why do You ask such a question? There are people all around You. They all touch You.”
But, brothers and sisters, this person’s touch was a touch of faith, and power was released from the Lord Jesus to her. Many came out of curiosity, to look at this person and see what He looked like, but they never had a real touch of Him.
That is significant to me. At the end of the raising of Jairus’s daughter, the Lord said, “Do not tell anybody what happened.” He gave strict orders to the family not to tell anyone.
Many times the Lord did that after a miracle was performed. He said, “Do not say anything to anyone.” The reason is that the Lord does not want us to know Him merely as a miracle worker. He wants us to believe in Him as the Christ, the Son of the living God, that through believing in Him we may have life. That is what He came for—not merely to do miracles, but to give life.
This woman could not hide herself any longer, and she came right in front of Him. St. Augustine put it this way: “Flesh presses, but faith touches.” I think that is a beautiful way of putting it.
There were many in the flesh pressing around the Lord, but only those who touch by faith truly touch Him.
When we come to the Lord, we all have some expectation. We all come to be blessed. We may think, “If I can only get that…” But the Lord often gives us more than we ask for.
This sister only wanted to be healed and then go on her way, slipping away unnoticed. But the Lord called her out and used one very tender word to give her a blessing she never anticipated. His intention was to bring her to Himself.
He did not merely give her health; He recovered her to Himself, so that a relationship could be established—a union of life, a restored relationship. So the Lord called her, “Daughter.”
She had been an outcast before—unclean. But now she was part of the family. Now she had been brought into the family, and now they could continue together. Before, she came from behind; now she was sitting right in front of Him.
All she thought was, “If I can get behind Him and touch Him, that is good enough.” But the Lord said, “That is not good enough. I will make you My daughter, and I will put you right in front of Me, that we may have communion.”
For the Lord to bring us to such a place, sometimes He has to use strange ways. With some, He may have to bring them deeper and deeper, through one bottom after another, until they hit the big Rock. Then they are revived and recovered.
When we reach the end, that is when we reach the beginning, because He is the first and He is the last.
Well, brothers and sisters, how can we apply this to our everyday Christian life?
As we look into the future, we always hope that the future will be brighter and brighter. But, brothers and sisters, that is a false hope. The world is the darkening background. Even in our physical bodies, the threat of death is always there.
We cannot be sure of many things, but there is one thing we can be sure of: if we have to fall back, we fall back on Him.
Before, He said, “I will follow.” With many others, somehow, by the grace of Christ, we are still here. Many times we fail, and fail miserably, but He is behind us to pick us up again and again.
When I read that account in Matthew 9, where Jairus came and pleaded for help, and the Lord arose and followed him, I realized that the Lord knew that without Him following us, we would not make it. We are all potential dropouts.
We cannot even trust ourselves. If He is in front of us, we can see Him. Thank God, sometimes things get between us and we are out of focus. But even when He is out of our view, He is still behind us.
He will not let us go. Once we have touched Him, we are marked out as His. That is why the Lord said, “Who touched Me?” If you ever touch Me once, I will not let you go anymore. You are stuck with Me for life, for eternity.
He put the woman right in front of Him and called her “Daughter”—an eternal relationship with Himself, to come in, to share, and to be His friend.
Brothers and sisters, the way to fullness is sometimes costly. It does not mean that we enter into the fullness of Him immediately. Sometimes we have to go down, down, down into the dark and discover the treasures that are there. Sometimes we have to go to secret places where nobody seems to understand what we are going through.
But the treasures and riches are there. I am prepared to meet people who have found treasure because of what they are going through. We are enriched through them. That is one way we can enter into the fullness of Christ: by sharing in the sufferings through which they have gone.
We go through with them spiritually, and what they discover becomes ours as well. Brothers and sisters, that is good. Our God is doing it.
There are many mysterious ways in which God is speaking. We do not know why, but these are ways for us to discover the riches that are in secret places and the treasures that are in darkness.
For the brothers and sisters who are going through that way, they are not doing it merely for themselves, but for the riches and the fullness of the Body of Christ. That is very real, and it gives me hope.
If we have to go down, the Lord is there. Brothers and sisters, remember: He arose and said, “I am behind you.” If you go through one false bottom after another, He will say, “I am the real bottom. Once you hit Me, you cannot go further down.”
That is Himself. Some of the Lord’s words that I have shared are very feeble, and I am sure you know all about them, but I think we need to be reminded.
What we see is only part of the picture. He sees the total picture. So do not doubt Him. Do not question Him. As long as He is leading us, and as long as He is behind us, we will reach the goal in Him.
Lord, we look to You to be very merciful. Help us not to choose our own ways, but to listen to that still, small voice that comes from behind—not from in front, but from behind—saying, “This is the way.”
Lord, we do not know what is ahead. We do not know the end, but You do know. As long as You are with us, as long as You are behind us, the end is in Your will, because You are the first and You are the last.
We can put our faith in You and trust You fully. Lord, give us faith to believe. Give us faith to commit our ways and our lives to You, that You may bring us to discover the hidden riches that are in secret places and the treasures that are in darkness.
Thank You for favoring us to discover some riches, even though the way of the Lord is difficult—the way of discipline for our formation. Lord, as we look back, we can only say, “Lord, it is Your mercy; it is Your grace.”
Help us, Lord, to follow You and to give our lives to You. We give You praise in Christ’s precious name.