Seeing Jesus, he fell at his feet and pleaded earnestly with him. (Mark 5:22, NIV)
In a recent social media post, the author asked his followers whom they considered to be the most underrated player on tour today. The replies included lots of winners you have heard of, all the way up to Tiger Woods.
But my mind went to every player who has never won on tour, be it the PGA or the LPGA, or a whole lot of other tours. Without a win, we generally aren’t interested. And yet every player on tour is among the few hundred best in the world. They have risen above every great player you have at your club back home. Even the “easy” courses they play are hard, hard, hard, and yet the numbers they post show just how much they know what they’re doing.
I think we can fall into the same bigwig mentality when it comes to our Bibles. We know Jesus and Moses and the prophets and the apostles. But what of the others? Asaph wrote 12 powerful psalms. But we laud David, he of the grand victories and failures, he of the 73 psalms.
So when a man named Jairus shows up in the Gospel accounts, our eyes kind of skip over him to the leading actor, who in this case is Jesus. To be clear, we never lose by seeing Jesus. But to be clearer, the reason to learn from Jairus is because of what he did when he saw Jesus.
Whatever reservations Jairus may have had about Jesus, he knew this much to be true: the Nazarene acted in the power of God.Jairus fell at Jesus’ feet and pleaded earnestly with him. He did this because his daughter was dying and he was desperate for her healing. “Please put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live,” he begged. Jesus went with him.
The lessons from Jairus come in the form of two questions: Do we recognize all that Jesus can do? And, how bad does it have to get before we go to him with our needs?
Jairus was a synagogue ruler, the exact description of those who often opposed Jesus. But like so many in the Galilean countryside, he had heard what Jesus was doing, casting out demons and healing the sick. Whatever reservations Jairus may have had about Jesus, he knew this much to be true: the Nazarene acted in the power of God. Do we remember this same truth when we assess the circumstances of our lives? We might hope he “intervenes,” but he has the power to overcome!
“But Jairus’ daughter was dying,” we might say. “Of course he was desperate. I’ll go to Jesus when it gets really bad. For now, I’ll handle it.” Ha! They may say the most powerful lessons are the ones we must learn for ourselves—but the smartest lessons are those we learn by watching others! There is no purpose in waiting until the last minute to bring our cares to Jesus. We can pray here. Now. With earnest pleading. For whatever we need. Indeed, we can pray before our needs are apparent, ever relying on the one who can do all things.
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Jeff Hopper
October 16, 2019
Copyright 2019 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.
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