Note: This message was shared by Mrs. Leslie Kumar
I am not fully aware of your cases, but there are a number of times when I have felt worthless and small and insignificant? Have any of you felt like that in your lives?
I was encouraged by the stories of so many insignificant women in the Bible, many of them whose names are not even recorded in the bible. I would like to specially highlight two of them from the new testament this evening.
One of them is the Bleeding Woman who got healed by touching Jesus’ Garment. ( Luke 8:43-48) This woman has been bleeding for 12 years and had no resources for a cure. She was anemic and exhausted. Worse was her continued state of uncleanness. As per the old testament law, (Leviticus 15:19-28) any man who touched a menstruating (or bleeding) woman became ceremonially unclean. Hence Jewish men carefully avoided touching, speaking to or even looking at such women. In short this woman was neglected, and had every reason to think small of herself and feel insignificant and give up hope.
The second woman is the Samaritan woman at the well. (John 4:4- 42) . This woman was a Samaritan, a mixed race which was hated by the Jews. The Jews did not want to be associated with the Samaritans. In addition, this woman had her own problems. She was known to be living in sin. The bible tells that she came to fetch water at noon. Generally, women come to draw water during morning and evening. This woman came during noon, to avoid meeting others due to the sinful life she was leading.
I keep thinking, what are the lessons we can learn from these two women? The first woman got healed purely by her faith. I am not telling this, Jesus told her that she was healed by her faith. There were many people around Jesus, when this woman reached out to Him and touched Him. There were many who were just curious about Jesus. This woman went beyond Curiosity and knew that Jesus was the Lord and that He had healing powers.
The Samaritan Woman at the well, was first taken aback by Jesus’ request for water. She questioned Jesus thoroughly, and through those questions she came to realise who He really was. She know she was unworthy of such attention. Even when Jesus offered her “living waters” her first reaction was that of material, fleshy, relief, that she does not have to come to the well for drawing water any more. She thought she could relax after that. But when she realised that Jesus was offering her eternal salvation, her reaction was amazing. She just could not keep it to herself. She forgot that she was a discarded , sinful woman. Al that she knew was that she has been offered eternal life and she wanted to make sure that other knew about it and benefited from this news.
This evening, let us examine ourselves. Do we feel insignificant , rejected, small , like any of these women? Are we just curious about Jesus, or do we have enough faith in Him , to know that we can touch Him, and that He will heal us? Do we believe that even though I am insignificant in this world, my Lord will turn around and say “daughter, you are healed?” How strong is our faith?
Or Like the Samaritan woman at the well, do we feel that we are an outcast? That we are living in sin , may be not as “big” as that this woman was living in, but do we all not sin? Do we believe that Jesus is ready to offer us the “living waters”. And more importantly, what do we do with that knowledge? Do we keep it to our selves? Are we afraid of telling this good news to some one else, for fear of rejection or unworthiness?
Let us examine ourselves.. let us pray..
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