When You've Prayed for Years and Nothing's Changed

Hello and welcome to Crowd Church. I was expecting much more of an introduction

then, but here we are. I'm Sharon, and I'm joined today by two absolute

legends, as my husband would say. I've got Dave.

Great to be here.

Yeah, I always love speaking to Dave. He's always got fabulous stories about

what God is doing. In him, through him, through the people that he meets. Um,

and I'm also joined by Mark Buchannan. Hi, Mark. Oh, I can't hear him. He's

disappeared. Hopefully you can see him. Mark's joining us from Yorkshire, and he

will be speaking to us today. We're in a series which is Jesus the

Revolutionary. I would have got Dave to say it for you, but apparently he— I

can't. He struggles with the word revolutionary. So, yeah, so we've been in

this series for the last few weeks, and Mark's going to be continuing in that

series. So as usual, join in the comments. We love to hear from you. Say hi,

be part of the community. For those of you who are new and don't know what, what

all this is about, so basically we're a church. in a moment, Mark is going

to bring the talk, and then after that, we have what we call Conversation

Street. Where me and Dave and also Mark will just— and you, if you, you can join

in online, we'll talk about the talk and pick up any of your questions and

just what really stood out to us. And our prayer today is really that for

everyone watching, that you will hear the heart of God, that his Spirit would

speak to you. So I think— do we have— have we got Mark?

Yeah, I think you have.

Yeah, lovely. Yay! Okay, great. So I'm gonna hand over to Mark. yeah, here

we go.

Well, thank you, and it's, great to be with you again. I think this might be

my fourth time at Crowd Church, so, it's really nice to be back. And this is

a brilliant passage that, you've given me to talk on. So this is a story

that comes in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, but I'm going to take the version in

Mark. There, some of the accounts are incredibly short about this story, but

Mark gives us the most detail, and as we know, as a biblical principle,

anything said by a Mark is, of great weight and authority, isn't it? so

let me just read through this story, and I just want to make a couple of

comments. But when I was thinking of a title, I was thinking, Bumping

Into Jesus Is Not Enough. And this is particularly, a story for the

desperate. We're going to hear about a desperate woman who, in a moment of Faith

and Revelation encounters Jesus in a way that literally changes her entire life.

So I don't know how life is going for you if you're listening to this talk,

whether you're live or, or later, but I've had a few desperate phases in the

last couple of years, and I've been a Christian a very, very long time, but

in some ways it's a big so what. It's not enough to be a Christian. It's not

enough to have been a Christian for ages. It's not even enough to be in the same

room as Jesus. And that's why I'm saying just bumping into Jesus isn't going to

cut it necessarily. But when we read this story, we're going to find out a woman

who— I think the Holy Spirit just drops it into her, but she knows what to do.

And when she does, unbelievable power is unlocked. And that's what we want,

isn't it? We don't want to walk this life on our own. So Jesus is just back from

ministering on the other side of the Sea of Galilee. He's cast multiple demons

out of a man who was so demonized that he was terrorizing the area. Huge

supernatural encounter, comes back over the next morning, bumps into one of the

leaders of the synagogue called Jairus, whose daughter is dying, who begs Jesus

to come and heal her. Jesus agrees, and off he goes, ostensibly to be helping

Jairus. And it goes in verse 25, it says, a large crowd followed and pressed

around him. So Jesus is literally surrounded by people. They're all interested

to see what will this teacher do, what's going to happen next. So this is a, a

big crowd, and in the crowd there's a woman who we find out in verse 26 says,

and a woman was there who'd been subject to bleeding for 12 years. She'd

suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had,

yet instead of getting better She grew worse. So here's a woman with continuous

bleeding. It's a hemorrhagic complaint of some sort. So that's a— I've never had

one, but that sounds like an awful thing to have. But she's also a woman which

the Old Testament declares she's unclean if she's bleeding. So even monthly

bleeding would put her unclean for days, but if you've got continuous bleeding

then you were unclean, anybody you touched were unclean, even if you sat down on

a bench or a stone, that bench or the stone would become unclean. So imagine

that you've got a physical problem that's causing you tremendous pain, it's

burned up all the money that you've ever had, nothing has helped, but you're a

social outcast and you're ritually unclean. And as you would understand it, That

means you getting into the presence of God or having anything to do with God is

a problem. So you've got social stigma as well, and shame, rejection. So she's

carrying a huge amount on her shoulders, as if it wasn't bad enough that she was

ill in the way that she was. And it says there that when she heard about Jesus,

she joined the crowd. Now technically, she shouldn't have done that. That's

against Jewish ritual law. She should have had nothing to do with anybody in

that crowd, and anybody who spotted her would be able to point her out to the

temple authorities or the synagogue leaders, and she would have been forced out

and sent outside the town until she was clean. So she's taking a big risk, but

she's desperate. What's she gonna do? You know, and sometimes depends on our

character a bit, doesn't it? But I tend to go in on myself when I'm under real

pressure, or as my wife sometimes says, I tend to sulk. So I, I think it's more

complicated than just sulking, but still, I'm an introvert and I go in on

myself, but that's not helpful. We have to do our part, don't we? We've got to

reach out. So this woman, it says she comes up behind Jesus, and then in verse

28 it says, because she thought to herself 'If I just touch his clothes, I will

be healed.' So there's no Jewish tradition that would have told her that was the

right thing to do. There would have been no scripture that she knew that told

her that's the right thing to do. So that thought has probably just dropped into

her head. Or was it the Holy Spirit? So she somehow knows that Jesus is the

person who can help her, and she's heard the stories. She knows that he's been

healing in the region, maybe even the news about what's just happened on the

other side of the lake has already got to the town. But she knows Jesus is the

right person, but she also knows, I've got to do something, so what shall I do?

And it says she came up from behind. So there's people all around Jesus, bumping

into him, jostling him, and she, because she knows it's important not to be seen

for as long as possible, basically sneaks up behind Jesus. And he touches— she

touches him. And it says in verse 29, immediately her blood bleeding stopped,

and she felt in her body that she was free from her suffering. She felt in her

body. So just touching Jesus healed her, and so it healed her so spectacularly

that she knew she'd been healed. Now here's the thing that intrigues me about

this, passage, and this is why I gave it the title I did. But hundreds of

people, or dozens of people, people minimum would have touched Jesus. They were

literally banging into him. But as far as we know, on this particular occasion,

in this crowd, the only person who has a supernatural encounter with Jesus is

this woman. So something about her coming up to Jesus, albeit from behind, where

she thinks she can do it in secret— and I'm sure she wasn't expecting to have

any kind of conversation with him— but she touches his garment and she's healed.

Now it literally says she touched the tassels of his shawl. So in the Old

Testament, and actually if you ever go to Israel and you see the Hasidim, the

Hasidic Jews, they still wear the prayer shawl. It's got blue threads woven in

to the tassels on the corner. Those tassels are called tzitzit. And they are

there from the book of Numbers as a reminder of God's law and God's covenant

with his people. That's what she touches, right on the corner of his cloak, his

shawl. Now the corner, it's the Hebrew word is kanaf, and it literally is the

same word that can be translated wings. And as preparing for this, it solved a

mystery that I've had since I was a very, very small boy. Growing up in

Liverpool, going to Jubilee Chapel where my dad was the pastor, and we'd be

singing hymns and songs. And I was doing that from the age of, I don't know, 2

or something. And the number of times I've sat there and sung the song Trust and

Obey, 'cause there's snow all the way, and thinking, I don't get this at all,

you know, I don't understand why this is in this song. It was years later they

said, no, no, it's 'cause there's no other way. So the other one that used to

trouble me though was in Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, one of my favourite

Christmas carols. It says, talking about Jesus born to give them second

birth, risen with healing in his wings. And again, I remember as a small boy

thinking, but I didn't know Jesus had wings. But it turns out that that's

actually referring to a messianic prophecy in Malachi chapter 4, verse 2, that

Malachi 4:2

says 'But for you who fear my name, the Son of Righteousness will rise with

healing in his wings.' And that was seen as a foretelling of the Messiah, that

he would rise with healing in the corner of his robes. So it looks pretty clear

that this woman, she had a bit of an understanding of the Hebrew Bible. She'd

obviously come to the conclusion that Jesus was actually the Messiah And if he

is the Messiah, there's healing in his wings, in the tassels on the corner of

his cloak. And she reaches out and she's immediately transformed and healed, and

she knows that the problem is solved. What's really interesting though is Jesus—

this is verse 30— at once Jesus realised that power had gone out from him. He

turned round in the crowd and asked, 'Who touched my clothes?' And the disciples

say, 'But Jesus, people are crowding against you, and yet you're asking, who

touched me?' In other words, they're saying, you're never gonna know. But Jesus

kept looking around to see who'd done it, and then the woman, knowing what had

happened to her, came and fell at his feet, trembling with fear, and told him

the whole truth. So she confesses that, I'm sorry, so sorry, I know I shouldn't

have done it, I know I'm ritually unclean, I know I've probably ruined

everything for you, but I just knew you're the Messiah, you can heal me, and I

have to do something about it. Now, later on in the Bible, we know that faith

without works is dead, it says in James chapter 2. And we see it with

James 2 · chapter mention

Bartimaeus, the blind man, in Mark chapter 10, where Jesus goes up to a man

Mark 10 · chapter mention

who's totally blind, obviously blind, and says, 'What would you like me to do

for you?' And you think, 'But that's kind of crass, isn't it? Of course,

everybody knows he needs to be made to see.' But he wants to hear Bartimaeus

say, 'I want to see.' And in the same way, this woman is expressing her faith.

She's not just bumping into Jesus, she's deliberately reaching out to touch

Jesus in faith, believing that he is the answer to her need, and she's healed.

And then to top it all, when Jesus realizes that it's her, in verse 34, he says

to her, "Daughter." It's the only woman that Jesus ever refers to as "daughter."

So Jesus takes the father role towards her, not a brother role that you would

normally do with somebody who was a woman that you weren't married to. You would

treat her like your sister, but he treats her like his daughter. He's showing

her special affection and favour, and he says, 'Your faith has healed you. Go in

peace and be freed from your suffering.' Now, 'Go in peace and be freed from

your suffering' literally says, 'Come into my peace.' and be permanently

released from your scourging, is the language that it uses there. So Jesus is

doing a number of things. He's saying, you don't have to apologize for reaching

out and touching me. That was perfectly okay. I'm actually glad that you did

that, and I'm showing you the most affection and favour that I can to a woman to

whom I'm not married. And I'm saying, enter into my peace So this is not just an

instantaneous healing. He's saying, from now on, you're going to live in my

shalom, my peace, and be permanently freed from your scourging. So this is not

going to come back tomorrow. You don't have to be in fear anymore. This isn't

going to happen to you again. And I'm saying all this out loud where we've

actually got one of the leaders of the synagogue in the crowd because we're on

the way to heal his daughter. So you don't have to worry about being ritually

unclean either. You don't have to worry about being ashamed or rejected. So I

haven't just healed you, I've given you everything that you need, even the

things you didn't think were possible and even the things you didn't know were

even available to you, all because you put two and two together, saw me for who

I really am, and then you touched me as Jesus the Messiah. I just think that's

incredible. We don't even know her name, and yet so much of what we know about

God is encapsulated in this story. So for you and me, there's going to be times

of desperation. Living life is hard. Things happen that we can't control. Things

happen that we don't want. But in that, we need to see Jesus for who he is. We

need to understand that Jesus is our means of provision. We need to have

confidence that he loves us so much that he's going to do whatever we need if we

put our need and our faith into action. So we don't just sit here saying, "Look,

I'm in church, I'm listening to worship music." No, that's being in the crowd.

We need to just go one step beyond that and say, "Yeah, not only am I in the

crowd, but I'm going to reach and touch Jesus." Praying is a fantastic way to do

that. Speaking in tongues is a fantastic way to do that. Reading scriptures that

in increase our knowledge of what Jesus can do and who he is. All of that gives

us that moment of intimacy, and when we get that and we reach out and touch him,

just like this woman, he will heal us, he will deliver us, he will help us, he

will hear us, and he won't stop there. He'll show us his affection, and he'll

also help us resolve all the side issues that come from the problems that we've

got. And if he did it for a woman who we don't even know about, he's absolutely,

definitely going to do that for those of us who've committed our lives to him,

made him Lord of our lives, and are walking with him. This is here to inspire us

to reach out, touch Jesus for what we need. Let me just pray. Lord Jesus, it's

just amazing how kindly you treat this woman and how you're happy that she's

reached out and that you knew something had happened and that you made sure she

knew what had happened and you made sure that all the religious leaders, all the

people who were just looking for some gosh wow, all the people who were

wondering if you really are the Messiah, and you turned a simple momentary touch

into a teaching opportunity and the complete restoration of this woman so that

she could have a life and a great life and live in peace. And Father, I pray

that for anybody who's listening to this who's desperate, Lord, give them the

courage and the faith to reach out and ask you for your help, to touch you,

Lord, and give them the confidence to expect that you will treat them just as

kindly and comprehensively as you treated this woman. Amen.

Oh, thanks for that, Mark. I always love hearing you speak, and in my fluster at

the beginning, I realised I didn't properly really say who you were for those

who haven't heard you before. So, the connection with Mark is that my husband

used to be involved with Traidcraft, and then Mark became involved in

Traidcraft, and I think not actually at the same time, but they were connected

through that, got on really well. And Mark has carried on with fair trade and

sells online, yeah, fair trade stuff, and also has lots of crazy stories about

what God's done and answers to prayer. So if you ever get the chance to speak to

him in person, also a fabulous person to speak to. just want to say hi to

people in the comments as well before we get into discussing. So we've got— oh,

there's loads— Sonia, Ade, Roz. Hi everybody! Catherine, Alicia, Ellis,

Matt, Dan. Am I missing anybody? I apologize if I missed anybody. But yeah,

we've got quite a few comments coming through which hopefully we'll pick up on

soon. But Dave, any thoughts? What, what were you thinking as Mark was

speaking?

Loved it, Mark. It was great. thank you. It's just a faith-inspiring talk.

And, for me, just the testimony, I think she'd heard—

probably heard on the grapevine, even though she's isolated and she's not

supposed to be out 'You know, I'm sure she'll have heard about Jesus and how he

set people free and, and all these things, healed the sick.' And she

was just— I think of her desperation. Wasn't desperate just to think, 'Oh, I

could do with meeting him, maybe he'll come past my house.' She got up and she

moved towards him. And, just that faith to go out knowing that there could

be consequences and just pushing through. But I think just that power of what

she said, the power of testimony, we need to realise that the power of

testimony can bring life and change people's whole situations.

Yeah, I kind of like the fact that you've picked up on that. It's like she

wasn't passive.

No, absolutely not.

And that her faith, it— we, you've kind of touched on it a bit, that

faith leads to action. And that pursuit rather than, like you just said, just

sitting back.

And I think we need to realise that, her physical state— she's bled

for 12 years, she's going to be weak, she's not going to be in a great— yeah,

you know, way. And she would have had to push through a crowd. I'm sure the

crowd didn't say, oh, let this lady through. Yeah, but she determined

to press through, and it just inspires me. For myself and for others to say, if

you need a touch from God this evening, push through, push beyond where you are,

and reach out to touch him. She didn't need Jesus to pray for her, she just knew

all she needed to do. She didn't have to stop Jesus, she didn't have to get

ministry from him, she just had to touch him and her life would be changed.

That's her testimony. Amazing. Inspiring.

One of the other things I like about this story is I think you kind of get a

sense of that desperation, which I think we can— many of us can relate to at

different points in our lives of just that, I guess we kind of can put

ourselves in her shoes in a sense, and just thinking sometimes you can feel

really lonely even in a crowd. And I just wonder if That's how she felt, because

really she shouldn't have been there, she shouldn't have been seen. So it's

almost like trying to make yourself invisible in that situation, but also being

like rejected by people. And again, that they're all kind of emotions that we

can relate to, aren't they? And, yeah, I think the Bible can be quite real

and raw about the emotions that we experience. Yeah, but that whole sense of

pressing through. So a question for you guys, have you been in situations

where you've felt that same desperation and you've had to like push through?

Also, for anyone that's watching on the live stream, do you relate to that

aspect of it— desperation, having to push through in pursuit of God?

For me, many, many, many, many times and would have needed a touch from God,

whether it's been, physically. So, a number of years ago I

was with a— we had a Year Team, and Paul— I don't know if you were on that Year

Team, Sharon— but they were up in the Brecon Beacons doing a whole host of

things, activities. Brecon Beacons is where they train the SAS. And I fell, and

I didn't fall very far, It must have been maybe 2 or 3 feet. And, but I'd

got separated from them and I was on the top of this mountain and I had to get

helicoptered off. And, they took me to the hospital and I wasn't in a great

state. And, I was gonna have some real difficulties walking with— and with

balance and a whole host of things. And, I came home and I was just really

desperate for God. You know, I think it was 35 at the time. I wasn't— it was

unlikely that I was going to be able to run around the garden with my son and

kick a ball and all the things that were so important for him. And I remember,

the elders at the time, and the most unlikely people to ever break into your

house, but they broke into our house because I was upstairs and I was

physically— couldn't walk. And they broke in to pray for me, and that just made

me angry. And, I remember on a Saturday evening, I didn't know they held a

prayer meeting in church. But I remember that evening just crying out to God,

you know, God, just come and intervene, just come and intervene, just come and

intervene. And 3 times Julie woke me up, said, you're having a nightmare or

something. But, I wasn't. I was actually just— my very being was

crying out to God. And then the next morning, I was utterly and completely

healed. The, gadget that I had on my leg and on my neck, I was able to take

off. I had a hole in my cruciate ligaments about the size of a 50p that was

miraculously healed. So yeah, but quite a few times like that, you know.

And, I don't doubt it, Dave.

Oh yeah, you know, it's just, he's, he's there. Yeah, he's just,

he's just there, you know. And I was desperate, and, and I know

there are desperate people Maybe, people who are watching today who

are desperate, and, and they've been desperate and God hasn't healed them yet.

But what they mustn't forget, he may not have healed you yet, but he's not

abandoned you. He's right there with you, and he wants to minister to you.

Yeah, we've got some great comments which I— and a great question which I do

want to pick up on. But Mark, first, if I go back to you, do you have any

stories of when you've been really desperate and had to make that active choice,

that pushing through?

Yeah, it's, it's, it's a while back now, but it was hard to know which one

to pick, isn't it? But many, many years ago, I, I went through a divorce, and

that meant my kids were going to move to a different country, and that was going

to happen on the Thursday. and I'd been prayer walking for years and years

and years with Graham Kendrick, who's a good friend of mine, and we were

praying, and I was just utterly distraught because I just felt there's nothing.

I can't stop it. I've got no rights to make this not happen. And it just felt

like the end of the world, literally the end of the world. It's probably the

most broken I've ever been. And we were praying together in tongues, and if you

pray with somebody regularly, you know what they sound like when they pray in

tongues. And suddenly, he's a very mild-mannered man, and he was praying. It was

very guttural and quite aggressive, which is not him at all. and, uh,

afterwards, I said, well, do you have a sense of what you were

praying? And it, it came out, it was all about the Lord's absolute ruthless

violent determination to protect the relationship between me and my girls, but

that I needed to hand them over to him. And that, yeah, in my strength, there

was nothing I could do at all. But it just gave me a sovereign peace. And then

for 13 years, I was backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards. And

literally, it was about 12, 13 years later, we were at the top of the Empire

State Building. It was the birthday of one of my girls. And I just started

crying like a baby in front of, hundreds of people all crammed on that

top deck there, because I suddenly realised, I thought, we've made it. We've

actually done it. All that thing that I feared, that I, I'd lose them

and that we wouldn't have a connection. And we were having an absolute ball

driving up the East Coast of the States. We got to New York, we were up there

enjoying ourselves, and I just thought, yeah, everything that he said he would

do, he did. but the knowledge that he had spoken, that's what I needed,

that's what centred me. So it's probably the most dramatic desperation answer

I've had.

Yeah, because we have those dramatic seasons, don't we? Where the emotion is

very deep and very raw, and then there are the, just the general

everyday kind of scuffles. Just picking up on some of the comments— oh, so many,

I'm losing my place here. Alisha's put, I always think of her actions, the

woman, as courageous too, especially when she admits she's the one who's touched

him despite her fear. Yeah, yeah, there is that fear and courage. I think

courage is in a sense stronger in the face of fear, isn't it, when you have to

overcome that. Matt's put— I love this— for me, she wanted to be made whole,

but when she touched Jesus, she was made well. That's partial wholeness. Calling

her daughter, Jesus made her whole, not just healed. Yeah, because he's

restoring her to the community in that sense, isn't he? And then, yeah, and then

we've got a question from Alice. he says, might sound like a silly question,

but how do you push through? Not a silly question at all. It's— I think that's

kind of like language we can use. It becomes a bit juggling. So guys, how do you

push through?

Well, I think she's in a crowd. She's literally in a crowd.

Yeah.

And to get to where she wants to get, even though she's not in good physical

condition, she just literally presses into people. And by the way, the fact that

she touches those people, they are now unclean. They may not know it, but

according to the law, they are now unclean. And she literally is having to move

them out of the way, you know. And she's not got a whole lot of strength, but

what she has she just is moving them out the way to get to where she needs to

be.

How would that translate? So, so say for example, we've got people watching who

are in a desperate situation and we're saying push through to God. Well, what

would that look like in this situation where you're not physically in a crowd

trying to get to a physical Jesus? But what does it— what does it look like?

Do you want to go first, Mark?

Yeah, I think It's, it's using what we've got, isn't it? And the thing, when

you're that desperate, you think, I just, I'm so stuck, there's just nothing

that I can do. But we can always go to God and say, my life feels like the sky

is falling on my head, but I believe you're the God who can help me, who can

heal me, who can restore my marriage, who can, help me in my business, help

me be a better mum, a better dad, a better uncle, auntie, whatever it is that we

have. I think to give God what we have, and I think that the point David's just

made is, look, what strength did she have after 12 years of bleeding, but she

does manage to get through? You think, well, it turns out that the little she

had was enough. And I think often part of feeling desperate is you just lose all

hope, don't you? And you think, one of the things that we can do to help to, you

know, bolster the little bit of hope we've got is to confess out God's goodness,

is to be thankful, to thank him for the things that we've seen him do, and to

say out loud, literally out loud. We were talking about Derek Prince and his

proclamations before we went live, and I think that's the point, isn't it? We

need to put the right words in our mouth. Scripture's full of the right words.

So yeah, there's a psalm or a passage of scripture, even if it feels

irrelevant to the situation, I think We just need to use our lips. And I think

it doesn't take any energy to be able to move your lips. It just takes will,

doesn't it? And courage, like somebody's already said about this, this woman. So

I would say deliberately position ourselves as in a place of thanksgiving and

expectancy by speaking out what we know of God's ability to heal, to help, to

save, to restore. And that can be a first move.

Yeah, great.

I think finding out, says, well, what does God's Word— what helps me most is

find out what does God's Word say about this.

Yeah.

And then I will just camp there and, as it were, start to proclaim God's Word.

Because I don't have to remind him, because he doesn't have amnesia or anything.

But I just start to speak out God's Word, and it stirs faith in me. And it makes

a way. But I think the other thing as well, that, it's not necessarily

fitting in with her story, but we're not called to do this walk on our own, that

God has generally put people around us.

Yeah.

And, we need to find people who we trust.

Yeah.

And who can walk on this journey with us, who can open up the word of God with

us and pray for us and hold us accountable.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Great answers. Alicia's also, put one in which picks up on what you said,

Mark. so sometimes pushing through to touch Jesus for me means praying first

instead of panicking first. Yeah, so it's picking up on the prayer aspect. Dave

picked up on the, like, really getting into scripture and just going, God, if

this is your word, show me, like, teach me from this. And the community aspect.

I think an example from me as well would be, one that I've talked about

loads of times, but, when I would— when my faith just really wasn't working

and I'm like, God, you've got to do something, for me that actually meant

physically moving. That was how I ended up coming to Liverpool, because I'm

like, God, if you don't sort this thing out for me, I'm, I'm gonna

walk away from you, and you've got this one last chance to sort this out, which

is how I ended up in Liverpool. But again, even that was like I felt compelled.

It was like God's Spirit compelling me up here. So I think there's having that

openness to God's Spirit to lead. And I do believe that when we cry out to him,

he does answer. maybe not all the ways the way that we expect or want, but

yeah. Mark, did you have something else?

Yeah, it sounded like it's interesting that she never said to Jesus what the

problem was. She just touched him.

Yeah.

And you think, well, but she got the healing that she needed, not the healing

that the person next to her needed. And I think often we tend to get so focused

on what's going wrong that that's front and centre, but of course that just

kills your faith. So in a slightly counterintuitive way, actually, probably

saying to the Lord, here's my problem, please do something about it, isn't

always that helpful, a, because he knows what the problem is. I think first, at

least, let's get into his presence, you know. And it says that we enter his

gates with thanksgiving, we go into his courts with praise. And I think

thanksgiving and praise put us in the right relationship to the Lord. And

sometimes you don't need to say any more than that. That's all that's required.

Other times we do need to say, listen, I'm blind, can I see? But I think, I—

especially when we're borderline panicking, it's really important not to confess

out everything that's making us afraid because it makes us more afraid. But if

we proclaim God's goodness, proclaim God's faithfulness, proclaim God's power,

proclaim God's love and his mercy, that puts us in a way better position. And

then sometimes that's all we need, and bang, it's sorted. Other times then we

can go ahead and say, can you please help me with this?

Yeah, yeah.

And we've got some discussion going on in the, the group chat about, how

she's not named. Yeah, yeah, and like many of the people in, in these

stories, they're not given a name. Although Matt has put in, in Eastern Orthodox

tradition she's named Fotina, meaning the luminous one. But this name comes from

church tradition rather than than the actual script, the text itself. But yeah,

interesting one.

I think, I think, was it Matthew said before, in the process she's just a

woman without a name with a disease.

Yeah.

Wherever she goes, whatever she touches, whoever she touches, she contaminates

them. And then she meets Christ Jesus, she touches him. And the, in

the paradigm that they'd been working with, he would have been unclean.

Yeah.

But the power of God that is in him, she touches him and she is made whole. And

I love it. And it's then on that revelation that she was no longer bleeding, is

that she knew that she was whole. That's where you find your identity. When you

have identity, you know You just know who you are.

Yeah.

And that's when he calls her daughter.

Yeah.

And I think, there is a process, that we need to keep on the whole

story, you know. So it starts not naming her, but, and he finishes with

daughter. Yeah. Your faith. He admonishes her. Shouldn't even be at the

beginning, shouldn't have been out. Daughter, your faith has made you whole.

Yeah.

Wow.

Jesus said that to her.

Yeah.

You know, she's on my list to talk to when I get to heaven. Yeah, that's just

amazing. You know, daughter, your faith, love it.

I love the compassion of Jesus that this brings out as well. Like, where

needed, Jesus is so gentle and compassionate and gracious and generous. But then

in other stories where people need it, he can be really to the point and, you

know, quite blunt, can't he? And yeah. So I, I love that about this story. Um,

so now in my head, this, this story is great, isn't it? This woman, she's in a

difficult situation, she pushes through, she touches Jesus, she gets her

healing, she's restored. But I know there's loads of people out there who've

been praying for years, not got the answer that they wanted. Any words of

wisdom? Just throw you guys in.

Well, she had it for 12 years.

Yeah.

And I don't know how long— maybe, well, it wasn't more than 3 years. I

don't know what her exposure to Jesus had been in that time.

Yeah.

But, relationship with Jesus isn't about everything being perfect,

you know. there are many Christians and, they're not in a

great place at all. I had a testimony just about 2 weeks ago of a guy who's in a

persecuted nation, and they took him and they covered him in petrol and they set

fire to him. And within days he was sharing the gospel, and he said, 'I thank

God that they only burnt my legs.' They covered him head to toe and set fire to

him.

Wow.

You know, and, I would say, it's not about come to Jesus and

everything is okay. It's about come to Jesus and I'll never leave you or abandon

you. So wherever we go, yes, we'll walk through the fire and we will feel the

heat. You know, we might get singed a bit. You know, we'll walk through, you

know, the water and we won't be overcome, but we will get wet. And I think, you

know, you look at that church in Acts, which we're studying in church at the

moment, and, the church flourishes in difficulty.

Yeah.

And we need to realise that, you know, some of us have sicknesses,

and, you might have a disease and, you're getting

medical treatment for yourself. Oh my God, I keep hearing about you, God,

healing people, blah blah blah. And, you know what, I, I've got a disease,

and a few years ago when I got it, I just thought, God, I'm seeing all these

miracles praying for people, blah, blah, blah. We've seen people with HIV being

healed, a whole host of phenomenal things. It's amazing. And then I got sick,

and I'm like, God, I don't understand. And I was angry, and I was confused, and

I was still ministering, and I couldn't pray for anybody for about 3 months

because I was angry. And I'm like, God, how can I pray for somebody when I'm

sick? And you know, I'm convinced that God speaks to you in a language you

understand. And I just felt in my inner being God say to me, 'Dave, you've never

healed anybody. It's me who does the healing.' You know, and I still have that

disease, but I am fervent about being a vessel open for God to use in praying

for people who are sick.

So yeah, and I think over the time that you've been ill, it's that you just seem

to have more and more stories of what God's doing both in you and through you,

and just like the people that you come in contact with just having words of

knowledge and stuff to pray and seeing all this stuff happen. So on the one

hand, it looks like you're having this amazing time in the middle of the fact

that actually you're still ill, still suffering many times.

I haven't been healed yet.

Yeah.

And nobody wants to be healed more than me.

Yeah.

But, I trust him.

So how did you get over your anger?

How did I get over my anger? well, one, it wasn't doing me any good. It was

shrinking faith. It was making me distant from God. And I just, I've

always known that God, since I came to faith, that God has loved me and he was

faithful to me when I wasn't that faithful to him. And, I just said, God,

you know, my favourite Bible verse, I'll never leave you or abandon you. And I

said, God, I can't feel you, but I know because this is what your word says.

Changed everything. Yeah, changed everything.

Yeah, I, again, I think I might have shared this before, but I've had times when

my mind was an absolute mess, and emotionally wise, I couldn't grasp anything

that the Bible was saying. But I was like, okay, your word says this. So this is

what I'm going to believe. And I, in my head, I had this image— I don't know if

it's an accurate image— of, flying a plane and not being able to see

anything around because it was all foggy, but just having to rely on the

instruments. And those instruments were like the word of God. So it's like,

okay, I'm just gonna go with this. I can't see any of it, I can't feel it, I,

I'm not understanding it right now, but the word of God says this, so I'm going

to believe this. And eventually it was like the fog clears and it's like, ah,

yeah, that is right, I can see it.

Yeah, I think— sorry, sorry, I think I remember clearly, one evening— well,

one early morning, about 2 AM, in those difficult times,

I remember just reading through scripture and I just jumped out of the story. I

knew, where, where the guys are then, and, and they say this and

that. You say, even if God doesn't do— we believe he can.

Yeah.

But even if he doesn't, yet will we praise him.

Yeah, yeah.

And you know, you might be, listening or watching this evening,

you know, fix your heart on him, not for what he can do for us, but for who

he is. He saved our souls and restored us to right relationship with God. That's

the greatest healing, that any of us can receive. And listen, I

really want to be— I'm not making an excuse, I want to be healed more than

anybody, you know. I'm not— I don't make excuses, you know. I don't— you know,

there's a handful of people I talk about my disease to, but my focus is on him

because it's him we have to trust.

Yeah, that's great. Marco, what about you? Have you got any words of wisdom for

people who maybe are struggling like that?

I think it's a very, very delicate area, isn't it? So my mum was in a— my mum

had MS all as long as I can remember. My mum was in a wheelchair and she, she

died with it, not of it, but she died as a very old lady. And she was in a

meeting, with a— there was two of them sat side by side, both in

wheelchairs, both with MS, at Spring Harvest, I think it was. And the woman next

to her was sovereignly, spectacularly healed and walked out of the big top

holding her wheelchair. And nothing happened to my mum. So I find that very,

very challenging. But to the day she died, she was adamant God is a God who

heals. So there are things that we don't understand. And I think what we'd never

want to do is then heap guilt on the person who's not healed. Well, it's your

fault, and you know, you obviously don't have enough faith. There's— that just

doesn't help, and it's not, it's not the way Jesus reacted to this woman. But I

think I would say we should behave and believe that it's on the way, at least.

Yeah. So the fact that I have not been healed doesn't mean I will not be healed.

Yeah. And even for her, at the start of the story, she's at the outside of the

crowd, and it takes some period of time for her to get to the place where it's

just a reach out and touch exercise to get in contact with Jesus. So I think

sometimes there is the jostling of the crowd and circumstance. Sometimes

desperation is the final bit that makes, I flippin' well will reach

out and touch him because I'm so desperate. Whereas, especially us

Brits, we never like to really be honest about our suffering, do we? And, you

know, I think sometimes we expend every other option first But scripturally,

Jesus healed everyone who came to him. So that has to be our source of truth.

But we also know people where that doesn't seem to be a straight-line

experience, and some people are— die in faith for their healing. And of course,

once we get to heaven, we know for a fact healing is completed at that point. So

it's how we position ourselves with respect to Jesus in that time between

starting to ask and receiving what we're asking for. That's where we have to be

ruthless and say, but the Jesus I'm trying to reach is a healer, is a deliverer,

is a comforter, is a peace giver, is a purpose giver, is a new life giver, a

second chance giver. That's what we have to keep our eyes fixed on. it's

frustrating that it doesn't work in black and white instant like it appears to

do it in that story.

Yeah, just, I just want to pick up on another thing. The whole thing of, um,

so Jesus was on his way to somebody important to do a healing there, but he

stopped for this woman who was a bit more of an outcast, a bit more of an

unknown. And yeah, I just really want to kind of focus on that fact that Jesus

stops for each of us when we reach out to him. I think a couple of weeks ago we

talked about how God sees us. Last week it was, about being touched by Jesus

in the good sense of that word. yeah, so this week it's really like how

Jesus stops for us It's, yeah, whether we feel like we're important in

society or whether we feel that we're not, he, he stopped. He listens. He, he

stops for—

yeah, that's brilliant. Fantastic.

Oh, anything else that you want to add, guys?

God is really good, and he knows exactly what season of life that we're in. You

know, life mightn't be good The season of life we are in mightn't be good. The

situation we are in mightn't be good. But you know, God knows us.

Yeah.

And he is for us. And whether you know him yet or not, he loves you. And his

love isn't conditional. It's open for all, regardless what we've done, where

we've been, what we haven't done. And, You know, the Jesus that we talk

about, he's just loving and compassionate. Whether he's on the way to the

synagogue official to heal his daughter who's dying, or whether it's this lady

who shouldn't be out, he's there and he engages. And the great news is

that Jesus is still engaging with men and women all around our nation.

Yeah.

And around the nations of the world. And people are coming to find real life in

him.

Amen.

Any last thoughts from you, man?

Yeah, Jesus doesn't have a VIP list. I think the point you're making there,

that's so important, isn't it? You know, is it for me? Yes, it's for you. And

both the important person, who's only important in secular terms, he's not

important in Jesus' eyes, she's not unimportant in his eyes, but they both get

exactly what they need from the same Jesus. And I think actually maybe Jairus's

faith— because the delay causes Jairus's daughter to die, and yet he hears Jesus

speak like that— maybe that was Jesus bolstering his faith too, to say it's

never too late. She was actually dead. He said, no, no, she's just asleep. And

yeah, so yeah, never ever give up. I would say never give up.

We've got a comment from Zoe, not the Zoe that's doing the tech. I've

had a debilitating illness for 5 years but only just come to God. I've prayed

for healing but not received it yet. This conversation is good to hear and

continues to give me hope. Thank you.

Yeah, bless you, Z. Yeah, yeah, cool.

I think we will wrap up Conversation Street there, but do come and join us

in Live Lounge. Hopefully the, the link will appear on the screen. And just

One last thing to say is actually our 28th wedding anniversary today, me and my

husband. So thank you for joining us for our little celebration. Yeah, so yeah,

so we'll wrap it up today. Thanks for joining us in the comments. There's been

so many, I've not been able to pick up on all of them. Sorry if I've not got

around to yours, but join us in Live Lounge now, or come back and join us

next week for the continuation in the series on Jesus the Revolutionary. So

goodbye. Thank you very much.