How God Works

Matthew 15:21-28, 27:46

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What if a heart breaking test can turn into a heart making test? Sometimes there’s moments in life that are just so challenging, and yet in those moments, God can work to teach us some really amazing things about him and about what he has done for us and what he’s doing in and through us.

I think of this story in the Bible where Jesus and his disciples went to a region called Tyre and we’re told that there was a Canaanite woman who was there. (Matthew 15:21-28) And that word Canaanite, it draws you back to the Old Testament, to the people who were in the land that God had promised his people, that were associated with worshiping false gods and doing a lot of bad things. So this woman, that name is kind of a noteworthy name. And this woman is calling out to Jesus, just begging Jesus to heal her daughter. Her daughter has been possessed by a demon and begging Jesus to drive that demon out to heal her. And Jesus just seems to blow her off. He doesn’t say anything. He just seems to ignore her. It gets to the point where the disciples are like, hey, send her away! And then Jesus, he says, well, I was sent only for the lost sheep of Israel, which still seems to be like this no.

And looking at this it can seem actually kind of cruel. Like, why would Jesus respond this way? This woman is just begging for for help. And so it pushes you to consider what’s going on. Is Jesus just ignoring her? Well, that wouldn’t be like Jesus. That doesn’t fit with Jesus’ character in other sections of scripture. Is Jesus, does he have something against her because of this Canaanite thing? Well, earlier in Matthew’s Gospel, when you read through the genealogy of Jesus, it mentions a number of Canaanite women or Canaanite connected women. So that wouldn’t really fit with the message of that either. Is Jesus just being cruel? Well, that doesn’t fit with what Jesus has done in other sections. And actually the Gospels, instead of portraying Jesus as being distant or cruel, we see on the cross that Jesus meets us in our pain. On the cross he said, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (Matthew 27:46) And so he’s not a far off, distant, cruel God.

So what was going on? I don’t know exactly why Jesus did what he did and how he approached that. I do know that when she kept asking for help and she kept asking him that Jesus does in fact heal her daughter. So when Jesus says “it’s not right to take the food from the children and give it to their dogs,” and then she responds, “yes, but even the dogs get to eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table,” and Jesus marvels at her faith. Jesus wanted her to keep asking, and he was happy to help her.

When you think about that situation, that’s a hard situation. That’s a hard story in the Bible. And it’s in some ways looks like a heartbreaking story, that he would not answer her right away, but it can be a heart making one. It can push us to consider those times when maybe we’ve been asking God and reaching out to God, and he seems silent and we might wonder, Is God have something against us? Or what’s going on? And by making us ask those questions, it can push us to consider and answer those questions. Does Jesus have something against us? No, that’s not the way Jesus works. Is Jesus ignoring us or being cruel? No, that’s not the way God works. By having this difficult time, it can push us to really ponder how God works. Or it makes me think of, recently I was replacing a mailbox post in my yard and I thought, wait a minute, I think I might have the wrong post. And I had this negative like sense that, oh no, maybe I bought the wrong one. So then I went and checked it out. And you know what I found out? I had exactly the right one I needed.

Sometimes these hard moments push us to check. Wait, do I have it right? Do I have it wrong? Sometimes we have these subtle feelings that maybe God has is not for me. That maybe God isn’t good. And these hard moments can push us to ask the questions and to really think about what God is like. And when we do that, we can be reminded that God is good, that God is loving, and most importantly, that God is so gracious that God Himself, Jesus, came into this world to meet us in our pain, to meet us in our struggle, and to rescue us from it. He laid down his life. He died for your sins and mine, and he rose again to set us right with him. When we go through these hard times, it can push us to think deeper about who God is. What is his character like? How does he work with us? What has Jesus done for us? And when that happens, a heartbreaking test can turn into a heart making one.