Deuteronomy 33:1-29
Luke 13:1-21
Psalm 78:65-72
Proverbs 12:25
Reading today's NT scripture, I was led to to realize our reactions are choices we make. We are told of the synagogue leadership that chose to react with indignation when Jesus healed a woman crippled by a spirit for 18 years. Rather than rejoice, the leadership chose to get angry, because Jesus healed her on the Sabbath. Even worse, perhaps because they had no leverage to compel Jesus to obey them, rather than respond by speaking a message of hope to the people, they told them not to come for healing on the Sabbath.
The woman's reaction we can probably guess. When she heard Jesus's words, might she have been afraid to believe they were true? Might she have hesitated before trying to straighten herself, for fear she would find she was still unable to? Then Jesus put His hands on her, and "immediately she straightened up". What did she do? She praised God.
If this had happened today, I wonder what people's reactions would have been. Would they have rejoiced with the woman, and praised God for the miracle? Or would they have chosen to find fault with Jesus, to complain, to demand explanations of God as to why He let that woman suffer all that time when He could have clearly prevented it all in the first place? And, perhaps, used that thinking to dismiss God, to deny His goodness, His nature?
Father, when we come face to face with Your many miracles, when You open our eyes to see them as often as they occur, grant that we react with the praise and rejoicing of the crippled woman, and not with the sinful cynicism of the synagogue leaders. In Jesus's name we pray.
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