Obtaining Deliverance

There is a very simple and yet a very profound story in Matthew 15.

As I try to fathom its lesson for myself, and for us all,
it shocks, and leaves me gasping,
It is the story of the Savior and a woman with a need.

In the story, Jesus, Who had come with a message to the house of Israel,
moves outside the geography of Israel to a gentile nation.

There we read of no ministry except for the story of this woman,
It is as if the purpose for his travel away from Israel 
were only to meet the need of this one woman.
And yet He gives the impression of not having that interest.

There is a piercing Reality in the incident - 
in her moving from a life Destroyed to a life Fulfilled.

She came to find that she lacked qualification.
     She came to Jesus' refusal to hear her petition.
          And yet the intensity of her Love drove her beyond rejection,
and she found a way.
(We speak of intensity, and I wonder if we have the slightest idea what it is.)
She saw in Jesus the Answer, and was willing to do whatever it took and go all the way to reach her answer.

She came all, all alone with her need.
     She came naked of pretenses and ready to admit that she was undeserving.
          She came naked but ready to plead, to cling, to continue, 
until she obtained an answer.

Jesus presented His reason for refusal: 
'I am not sent except to Israel'.
Her reply was not to justify her people, 
but to present herself as one solitary needy child.

It is as if she were saying:
"I don't know about the ministry to the nation, but look on ME.
Look on one who suffers - on one who comes to Thee as her only hope."
"Help ME."

     She came to the One Who hears the cry of the afflicted. (Job. 34.28)
          She came to a promise wider than the limits of the tribes of Israel.               
               She sets herself before Him -
                    as if at that moment she were the only one in creation.

In her coming, it was as if all creation was crying to its Maker;
crying for Mercy. 

Her story is a lesson for life:
     He went to her city with a purpose -
          He found her,
               and she found Him.
She shows us a way - 
     through her faith ,and the intensity of her naked pleading.

     May we not cease until we too, find a need-meeting fullness in Him.