“The Christian ideal has not be tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.” – GK Chersterton

A journey takes time. It has good days and tough days. The Children of Israel found that out as they left Egypt and headed into the wilderness. There they became discouraged, found that things didn’t appear better than Egypt, even though they were now free and not slaves, and didn’t just worry – they actually talked about going back to slavery. (John the Baptist would later call them back to the wilderness to repent).

It is interesting that Jesus is attracted to human brokenness. Whether it was the blind man, the woman caught in adultery, the leper, the family who had lost a child, Jesus was attracted and brought His compassion and power to that situation. I think He is still attached to human brokenness. That is why He longs for us to ask for help. Remember His question to the man laying by the pool of Salome? It was “Do you want to be healed?

You may know that for a Jew to touch a leper, a woman having her menstrual cycle, or a corpse (and a dozen other things) made the Jew unclean. Unclean allows flowed to unclean. Clean never flowed to unclean. That was the Old Testament norm.

Then along comes Jesus, who touches the unclean, and He makes them clean. And if you read the stories, it is always tied into Jesus’ awareness that they had faith – they believed in Him.