Christian Counseling Service -- Devotions

Dig a little deeper, the gold is there...I know it!

Monday, December 4, 2000

Matthew 8:5-11
...A centurion came to Jesus, asking for help. "Lord," he said, "my servant lies at home paralyzed and in terrible suffering." Jesus said to him, "I will go and heal him." The centurion replied, "Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, 'Go,' and he goes; and that one 'Come,' and he comes. I say to my servant, 'Do this,' and he does it." When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and said to those following him, "I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith."

The servant is in terrible suffering. He isn't there to cry out, to plead, to pray for himself. His friend and master speaks for him, while he waits. Lying in bed, paralyzed, waiting.

Do you remember the self-centeredness that comes without bidding when the pain gets too great? I do. As hurting becomes the reality I live with, my sense of God's presence fades away in the screaming, awful intensity of physical and emotional pain. I descend into what can only correctly be called self-pity. It's at this point that I need...I am desperate for, the prayers, the comfort, the standing beside me, of my friend.

The servant's master and friend, the soldier, was a man of authority. But his authority does not help him now. He is as powerless as his servant. He stands beside the bed, in tears, helpless, watching his friend die. But unlike his servant, the centurion can still turn to Jesus. And he does.

God knows the servant is dying. What is he waiting for? In this story, it seems that Jesus is simply waiting for someone to ask him for what he has to give. And then he freely gives it.

Calvin Miller wrote a wonderful book about Jesus, and about us, called The Singer. In it he tells a story of the itinerant singer spending one night with a crippled man who runs a mill. He lives beside the stream, in the mill. One day his hand was mangled by the equipment:

"I will," observed the singer, "make it useful once again if you will just desire it whole and believe it can be."

"It cannot be so easy, Singer. Would you wave your magic wand above such suffering and have it all be done with? I sometimes wake at midnight with a searing flame of fire and throbbing agony alive through all this twisted, dying limb. You have both hands and cannot understand this sort of pain."

"There is power within the Melody given me by the Earthmaker to make you well. Please, Miller, trust and let me sing and you will run the mill alone with two good hands."

"Stop your mocking! I am a sick old man whom life has cheated of a hand. The nightly pain has already now begun. The season of my hope is gone."

The Singer watched him caught in some dread spasm of his aching circumstance. He moaned and fell upon the floor and with his healthy fingers he held his mangled hand. He waited for the Singer to join him in his pity, but when he raised his head for understanding, the door stood open on the night and the Singer was nowhere to be seen.

Lord, as I wait for your coming in the darkness of this winter, forgive me for closing the door on you, for believing more in what I have in my hands than in your promise. Forgive me for my clenched fists, grasping so little. I have closed my eyes to the spacious beauty of your world. Give me opportunity to pray and be prayed for, to walk alongside others whose eyes are closed, as you come to us again, and open us.

Devotions Archive

Dig a little deeper, the gold is there...I know it!

Monday, December 4, 2000