This is the first devo in a “Come Alive” series. 

The book of Mark shows us how Jesus lived his life.

In Mark 5, we walk through a day in the life of Jesus – as he walks through the town and talks to the people. In the midst of the day, we meet two women. Different women, different backgrounds, but they have something in common on this day. They both meet Jesus.

The first woman has been sick for a long time. We don’t know her name but we do know she has been bleeding for 12 years – in addition to the weakness in her body, her disease has made her unclean in the eyes of the community and her family. Verse 26 says, “She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse.” She is desperate for a change in her life and had heard about this man going around town healing people. She believed if she could just touch him, it might bring the healing she’d searched for. She didn’t want to talk to him or sit with him, she just wanted to touch his clothes. She had tried everything else, so why not try this?

The people in town that day wanted to get close to Jesus – close enough to hear what he had to say, close enough to see, just in case he did something extraordinary. As Jesus moved through the crowd, so did this woman. She couldn’t help but touch people on her way to Jesus. Her desperation drove her to risk working her way through the crowd that had always rejected her to get to the man she hoped held healing.

She finally got close enough to reach out and touch the edge of his shawl. As soon as she did, she knew she was healed. And Jesus knew he’d been touched. He could have just kept walking – he and the woman both knew he’d healed her. That could have been enough, but that’s not how Jesus works. So he stopped.

Maybe he wanted thedisciples to know what had happened.  When Jesus asked, “Who touched me?” I can just imagine the look on the disciples’ faces. They were young men, not far out of their teenage years, and they responded, “You see all these people? And you ask ‘Who touched me?’”  They didn’t understand the difference between the casual contact of the crowd and the faith-filled touch of someone desperate for healing. But Jesus did.

Maybe he wanted the crowd to know this woman they’d always seen as unclean wasn’t sick anymore. There were probably others in the crowd that day that were ill. When they saw her healing, they may have wondered, “Well, I bumped into Jesus and I wasn’t healed.” But there is a huge difference between bumping into Jesus and reaching out to him.

But maybe he stopped and pointed her out because he wanted herto know that it wasn’t her touch that had healed her. It was her faith. We can find a lot of things wrong with her faith – it was slow in coming (she’d tried everything else first); it was a little superstitious (if I just touch his garment, I’ll be healed); she was secretive about it (she didn’t want anyone to know about the hope she was placing in this simple touch). But here is the key – she had finally placed her faith in Jesus. Her desperate faith, fueled by losing everything and coming to the end of her own resources. The desperate faith that had pushed her past every obstacle and every fear to reach out and touch the only one who could help her.

When the woman heard Jesus ask, “Who touched me?” She stepped forward and fell at his feet. When he spoke to her, he could have used her name, or he could have called her “woman” – but instead he looked her in the eyes and said, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” Jesus didn’t want to just step into her life for a moment, give her what he knew she needed, and then walk back out. That’s not the kind of relationship Jesus wants – he wants a relationship that allows us to be strong and healthy and one where he calls us “daughter.”

Parents understand that moment of marvel when we see our child for the first time – whether through birth or adoption. There is nothing like that moment. We understand the idea of things being wonderfully made because we’ve held them in our arms and looked them in the face. The wonder which fills us when we look in the face of our child is the same thing God feels when he looks at each of us.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. Psalm 139:14

God took great thought and care into putting the human body together. It is an amazing combination of intricately intertwined systems. Our eyes can distinguish up to 1 million color surfaces and take in more information than the largest telescope known to man. Our lungs have a surface area the size of a tennis court. Just three months into pregnancy, an unborn child already has fingerprints, which will never change throughout his life. In one day, the human heart pumps blood that travels a total of 12,000 miles. Your body cells are regenerating themselves every single day, which means you have an entirely new set of taste buds every 10 days, new nails every 6 to 10 months and new bones every 10 years. God formed us as he wants us to be. There are choices we make in our lives that alter that design, but our basic formation was created and blessed by God.

Do you know it full well?

While this verse describes our unique and remarkable bodies and gives an indication of our value from God’s perspective, this Psalm is more about God than about us. We were made by a God whose acts inspire fear and wonder and should draw us into worship of the creator. We may not understand anything else about God, but we know his works are wonderful.

Keep reading in Psalm 139. Verse 15 says you were woven together (NIV), intricately wrought (KJV) which translates as “embroidered.” If you’ve ever embroidered anything, you know it takes time, focus and attention to detail. God embroidered you. But he did more than just design and form you – verse 16 says he planned your days. He planned tasks for you to perform (Read Ephesians 2:10; Philippians 2:12-13). He plans the very best for you (Read Romans 12:2). God feels so strongly about you that he intricately plans your life.

Do you know it full well?

If we don’t base our decisions and identity on the truth of how God feels about us, we let others dictate how we feel about ourselves and may make decisions outside of his plan. Warren Wiersbe says, “Wrong ideas about God will ultimately lead to wrong ideas about who we are and what we should do, and this leads to a wrong life on the wrong path toward the wrong destiny.” The right knowledge of God’s opinion of us is the key to understanding our gifts, passions, abilities and seeing our experiences in the light of God’s plan.

Read Psalm 139:14 several times over the next week. Read it, whisper it, say it out loud to yourself and to your children. Each time you do, emphasize this phrase: I know that full well.

Today write your own psalm. It doesn’t have to rhyme or have a meter or cadence to it. Just write a message to God. Worship him for how he created you.

When my daughter was little and she wanted to show off her monkey-bar skills she would call out, “See me, mama! See me!” She wanted me to watch – to know I appreciated what she was doing.

In Genesis, we meet a woman named Hagar. She was poor and pregnant – feeling scared, useless and alone. But God knew her past and knew right where she was. She realized he was a God who saw her, even when she was trying to hide. She called God El Roi – “the God who sees” (Genesis 16:13). This is the only time in scripture where this name for God is used.

As we keep reading in Genesis, we find Hagar two years later. She and her son, Ishmael, have been banished and Ishmael is dying from thirst. Hagar is weeping over her inability to help him. Suddenly God speaks to her through an angel who says, “What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation”(Genesis 21:17-18). Then God opened Hagar’s eyes, and she saw just what they needed right then – a well full of water. It seems Hagar had forgotten the name she called out to God years before. She forgot that her God is El Roi.

During her life, my mom was diagnosed with cancer three times. Every time we sat at a table across from a doctor and heard the word “cancer” followed by options, treatments, and prognoses. The last time we sat at that table, the doctor said there were very few options and we probably only had a few months left with her. After the doctor left, my mom said, “Well, what do we know?” Our first response was, “We know cancer sucks.” My mom responded, “Yes, it does. But we also know that God has always been faithful to us, and he will be faithful this time, too.”  She remembered that her God is El Roi.

Mom lived four years beyond that last meeting around the doctor’s table. We were so grateful for all of that time, but there were many times during those years when I sat with my mom and wondered, “Does God even know we’re here? Does he have any idea?” How often in the midst of our fear, loneliness, pain or confusion do we cry out, “See me, God! See me!”? He saw Hagar and was faithful to her and her son. He saw my family in that doctor’s office and he understood our circumstances. He knows where we are and will meet us there to provide exactly what we need. He is El Roi – the God who sees.