Parental Faith!

Mark 7: 29-30- “Then He said to her, “For this saying go your way; the demon has gone out of your daughter.” And when she had come to her house, she found the demon gone out, and her daughter lying on the bed.”

If you are a studier of the Word, then this is a familiar and challenging passage. As a matter of fact I have already written a blog on this from Matthew’s version titled, “The Children’s Bread”. It is one of my favorite passages on faith. What’s challenging about it is that it causes me to take a look at my personal faith in Jesus to see if it is producing results!

From there He arose and went to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And He entered a house and wanted no one to know it, but He could not be hidden. For a woman whose young daughter had an unclean spirit heard about Him, and she came and fell at His feet.

Mark 7:24-25 NKJV

Jesus has entered a home where He is looking for rest. We know this because Mark stated that He didn’t want anyone to know He was there. But there are some things that just can’t be kept a secret. Especially when people are looking for you! And people were always looking for Jesus!

There was a woman, a mother, whose daughter had an unclean spirit. We are not given details about how bad things were, but we can surmise that they were pretty bad. When this mother heard about Jesus, she knew she had to find to Him. Since she had heard about Him, she had to know that He was Jewish, and as such, would probably not look favorably upon her or her request. But she also knew that if her daughter had any chance of being free, it was a chance she needed to take.

As people, we often find ourselves in desperate situations; and if not us, then our children. It looks like drug addiction, alcoholism, attempted suicide, demon worship, bad relationships, and a host of other things that cause us to cry out to Jesus. If you raise them in Christ, you are at a loss for what is helping. If you became a Christian later in life, you might be beating up yourself, wondering why you didn’t surrender earlier. It’s time to release the guilt and move forward in faith!

She had heard what Jesus had done for others. Many times He told them not to tell anyone, but they couldn’t keep the secret! Shame will cause you to keep silent about your need for Jesus, or your child’s need for Jesus. Don’t let it! Had these people not shared about being set free from demons, she would have never heard that He could set her daughter free! We need to break the code of silence that keeps us from giving hope to this troubled world and let others know that Jesus hasn’t changed!

The woman was a Greek, a Syro-Phoenician by birth, and she kept asking Him to cast the demon out of her daughter. But Jesus said to her, “Let the children be filled first, for it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.”

Mark 7:26-27 NKJV

The Syro-Phoenician woman wasn’t just sitting by Jesus’ feet doing nothing. Mark wrote that she kept asking Jesus to cast the demon out of her daughter. There are some people who believe that if you are asking in faith, you only need to ask one time. But here, this woman kept asking. In fact, we get the impression that Jesus is ignoring her. Why?

But Jesus said to her, “Let the children be filled first, for it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.”

Mark 7:27 NKJV

With this statement, He told her that His ministry wasn’t to the Gentiles, but to the Jews. Let them be filled first, was His way of telling her that it wasn’t time for the Gentiles to partake of the goodness of God. In answering her request, He would be taking that which belongs to the Jews and giving it to the Gentiles. He used the analogy of bread, children, and dogs. Since she was a mother crying desperately for help for her daughter, He told her that it would not be good to take the children’s bread and give it to the dogs when the children had not been filled yet! But she would not be deterred.

And she answered and said to Him, “Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs under the table eat from the children’s crumbs.”

Mark 7:28 NKJV

She agreed with Him! Called Him Lord! Then she made a statement that countered timing. A statement that countered fairness! A statement that pulled tomorrow’s provision into her today. She said that the dogs eat the crumbs from under the table. In other words, she didn’t need the bread, she just needed the crumbs. But to the ears of God, her desperation was her faith. She wasn’t moved by a “not now” like so many of us are moved. She wasn’t moved from her position because He seemingly ignored her. She didn’t allow her feelings to cause her to become offended or angry. He had what she needed for her daughter and she was willing to do anything to see her daughter free.

Then He said to her, “For this saying go your way; the demon has gone out of your daughter.” And when she had come to her house, she found the demon gone out, and her daughter lying on the bed.

Mark 7:29-30 NKJV

Mothers, I know you can relate to this woman’s cry of faith! I know you have testimonies of when the need was so great that only Jesus could come through for you. So you fell on your face before Him and cried out in desperation, with a heart of faith, and He answered. Dads, I know you have read this passage and said that you could identify with this mother. Your family had a need, or your child had a need, or maybe even your wife had a need, and you went straight to the Lord. Your desperation wasn’t one of begging and pleading and hoping something would happen. It was a heart’s cry of faith. Jesus I know you are my only help and I’m trusting you to do this! I won’t leave until You assure me that things are going to be well. And He answered you!

So here’s my question, as one of my favorite bloggers always say: Why don’t we pray like this all the time about everything? If this kind of praying moved heaven and earth once, won’t it work again and again?

As parents, we don’t ever stop praying for our children. They are our heart’s cry for life! Maybe, you are in a place where you have given up on your children ever being free. Maybe you have good reason to feel that way. I want to encourage you today to keep praying for them. Trust that what they need most can only come from Jesus. Faith will move His hand in their direction because faith moves mountains and crosses dimensions! Wonderful Jesus!