The Right Way and the Desperate Way

for my fellow desperate Docents… you know who you are.

And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped.

“Who touched me?” Jesus asked.

When they all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you.”

But Jesus said, “Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.”

Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. Then he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace” (Luke 8:43-48).

There is a right way to do things and a desperate way.

The Right Way is what most good church-going people learn first. I know I did.

Rules, robed in righteousness and humility, are given and taught, preached and practiced. And they are important for a time, for training us up in the way we should go.

Rules are revealing. They expose our sin, disclose our weakness, reveal our limitations. 

Rules lead to revelation. They reveal our utter inability to be perfectly good, holy, clean, confident, successful, kind, loving; add your own pursuit to the sentence.

Rules lead to the end of the Right Way. 

The Sunday School teacher who is a secret alcoholic just can’t seem to get free no matter how much she goes through the motions at church.

The girl struggling with her sexual identity goes to weekly Bible Study and reads Christian books about what to do, but inside she’s torn in two by dual desires.

The man who has worked hard, given faithfully, and provided for his family learns his wife doesn’t love him anymore and wants a divorce.

The Muslim woman prays five times a day, fasts during Ramadan, and even makes up the days she misses because of her monthly cycle. But she is infertile, and her husband has taken another wife.

All of these people have reached the end of the Right Way, the place where suddenly the Right Way appears not to lead to Right Results. 

Like a road that suddenly disappears into a forest, the Right Way seems to have failed us.

We have a choice in this critical moment. We may not see any choice through the darkness of the forest looming before us, but we indeed have a choice in this place where the road seems to end.

We can choose to abandon our faith. To turn around, walk away. Leave the Rules behind, the Right behind, the hope of achieving goodness by doing things right.

Or, we can choose the hidden way, the narrow path of desperation, just visible if we will peer closely. Among the knobby pines we will see a rough-hewn sign, low to the dust, its words carved by the nail-scarred hands of a Carpenter.

This Way for all Who are Desperate

Come to Me

Suddenly, the Right Way lying behind us seems too perfect, too impossible. 

The desperate see this humble signpost and run, run as though their lives depend on it. For when one is desperate, one’s life does depend on it. On running to Jesus. The God-Man who understands desperation. The One who cried tears of blood as He stared down His own death at the hands of people He loved. The One who with loud cries asked for a different way than desperation. A different way than death. A different way than pain. 

But in the end, He was the One who yielded His will to God. He is the Messiah who, for all the desperate ones, made a path to New Life.

The woman with the issue of blood understood this. Intuitively, experientially. She had been on the Right Way once. But when the bleeding began, she could no longer stay. She was cast off, unclean, rejected, lonely, isolated from spiritual, physical, mental, and emotional comfort and security. She became desperate.

Then she saw the sign. Those powerful words. 

Come to Me.

She ran with all her might to the One who never rejects the desperate. The One who dwells with the brokenhearted (Psalm 34:18). The One who commands that a bruised reed not be broken (Isaiah 42:3). The One who made a stump sprout the Branch that would save the world (Isaiah 11:1).

While those on the Right Way were noisily denying they had done anything wrong (v.43), the woman with the issue of blood was reveling in the new and shocking sensation of Clean. Healed. Whole. 

Where are you today, pilgrim? Are you on the Right Way? Do not fear, you need not await some bad news that will make you desperate in order to Come to Him. Perhaps when you come to Him He will open your eyes to the desperation in others and make you His instrument. The Right Way is so much better with our hand in His.

Are you desperate? Have you come to the end of the Right Way, confounded, disappointed, broken-hearted that all your right efforts have not yielded the right results you expected? Peer closely and see the humble signpost.

This Way for all who are Desperate

Come to Me

His mind is on you right now in the midst of the pressing crowd. He knows you are near, that you are teetering on the edge of a decision. Abandon, or come.

Reach out your hand and touch Him. Forget the rules for a moment. Forget the people. The judgment that has placed you in isolation, the failure that has separated you, the grief that has paralyzed you. Just you and Jesus. Right here, right now. 

Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace (Luke 8:48).

Lord, I come to You. Let all else fade away in this moment but You, and me. Won’t you heal me today? Amen.

@audreycfrank