I am always with You; You hold me by my right hand. You guide me with Your counsel, and afterward You will take me into glory. Psalm 73:23-24.

This morning in our Friday Zoom Retreat, we listened to the encouragement we need and so easily dismiss. Some of the thoughts we needed to hear: “You’re not a physician and you can’t heal yourself.” “Accept God’s open arms.” “You are not a project, a set of things that need to be fixed.” “Relax and let God take care of our spiritual needs.” “Accept His Grace.” “What if you’re really doing ok?” And we can so easily dismiss that because we mess up all the time! And the crazy thing is, in being hard on ourselves we end up being hard on everyone else. And in being so fearful of darkness, I see darkness everywhere. And then I lose sight of Creator God – Father, Son, Spirit, and His love for me and for all of us. Is it any wonder I struggle with faith in what God can do when I measure Him by what I can’t? Do you ever struggle with these things?

And in our chapter, Mark 7, is a perfect example of being so bound by rules and condemnation, that we miss what is most important – loving God and those He loves. For background, there were strict rules for rituals of cleanliness before eating, even to how the hands and arms were to be washed. Some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law came from Jerusalem and were observing Jesus and His disciples. So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?” He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: ‘These people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. They worship Me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’ “(Isaiah 29:13). v. 5-7. They were more concerned about rules concerning defiled hands. Yet by their own rules money that could have helped their own parents in need was declared Corban – devoted to God…and that was not what God wanted. v. 8-13. And then, Jesus called the crowd to Him and said, “Listen to Me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.” v. 14-15. Can you feel the impact of this declaration by Jesus, the Son? When His disciples asked for clarification, Jesus told them, “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? For it doesn’t go into their heart, but into their stomach, and then out of the body. What comes out of a person is what defiles them. For it is from within…out of a person’s heart…that evil thoughts come – sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person.” v. 19-23. How can that compare to hands not washed before eating? And next we meet the gentile woman in Tyre who asked Jesus to heal her daughter who had an impure spirit. The Jews thought gentiles were “dogs” and unclean. But she fell at Jesus’ feet! “First let the children eat all they want,” He told her, “for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” “Lord,” she replied, “even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Then He told her, “For such a reply, you may go; the demon has left your daughter.” She went home and found her child lying on the bed, and the demon gone. v. 24-30. How can we love God when we have so much disdain for others? And then Jesus traveled to the region of the Decapolis – the Ten Cities. Gentile land. And people there brought to Jesus a man deaf and hardly able to talk and begged Jesus to heal him. And Jesus did. At this, the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly. Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone. But the more He did so, the more they kept talking about it. People were overwhelmed with amazement. “He has done everything well,” they said. “He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.” v. 31-37.

When we take these events to heart, can we begin to see that it is Jesus, Creator God, who heals hearts and bodies and minds? We can’t heal ourselves any more than we can force healing on anyone else. As we continued our discussion this morning, we were reminded that God knows we are “dust”. He knows how messed up our world is and how difficult it is to live and navigate and trust. He knows! Again from this morning: “Life is not about decisions. It’s about Discernment. Where is God leading me? Notice. Attend. Wonder. You don’t ‘got this’! He does. Relax and let Him be the One to shape you. Stop guessing what God wants you to fix about yourself (or others). Follow Him instead.”

And as we trust Him, the Light of His Love is right here with us where it always is. Notice…Attend…Wonder…God’s Love is amazing!