Who Touched Me?

Have you ever wondered to yourself; "How can everyone else seem to be so

happy and full of joy when my life is so miserable?"

How is it that other people can worship with unrestrained enthusiasm and

I always feel so restricted?

How is it that my friends are always "hearing from God" on something in

their lives, yet I seem to be praying to a brass heaven?

Others are getting healed

Others are getting blessed

Others are getting excited

Others are getting used of God

Others are winning souls

Others are prospering

Others seem to have an insatiable thirst for truth and a ravenous desire

for His presence

Where am I missing it? (And) How can I get what I see others getting?

Have you ever felt like just another face in the crowd?

..like you were not making any difference to anyone

..like you were not needed or necessary

..like you were just passing time and taking up space

Yet all the while you were doing everything within your power to muster up

the desire and the revelation of God in your life to elevate you to that

place where it seemed that everyone else seemed to so easily attain.

Does the grass always look greener on the other side of the fence.

The feeling of being just another face in the crowd can be the loneliest

and most helpless situation that one can ever imagine.

(Q) If you have ever been to a large city such as New York City- downtown

or even New Orleans during the height if the Mardi Gras, you can easily

find yourself swept into the flow of the crowd.

Before you know it, you are surrounded by hundreds and thousands of

unfamiliar faces. Even though there are multitudes around you- all

seemingly content and completely comfortable in their surrounding- you

feel isolated and alone and totally out of place.

There is something about being lost in the crowd that is the most horrific

experience that one can imagine. If you have every been separated from a

child in a crowded department store or have found yourself taking the

wrong exit into a bad area of a large city, you know the knot that appears

in your gut, that chokes all hope and optimism right out of your mind.

Luke 8:43-48 "And a woman having an issue of blood twelve years, which had

spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any, Came

behind him, and touched the border of his garment: and immediately her

issue of blood stanched. And Jesus said, Who touched me? When all denied,

Peter and they that were with him said, Master, the multitude throng thee

and press thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me?

And Jesus said, Somebody hath touched me: for I perceive that virtue is

gone out of me. And when the woman saw that she was not hid, she came

trembling, and falling down before him, she declared unto him before all

the people for what cause she had touched him, and how she was healed

immediately. And he said unto her, Daughter, be of good comfort: thy faith

hath made thee whole; go in peace." (KJV)

Much has been said and much has been preached concerning the woman with

the issue of blood.

The visual image invoked by the thought of this woman pressing through to

Christ makes for a challenging pattern for the believer in Christ Jesus.

I have often looked at the fact that she had suffered 12 years

That she had spent all that she had to find a remedy

She abandoned all customs and rules to get to Jesus

But this time as I read the text, it was verses 45 & 46 that jumped from

this passage

45 And Jesus said, Who touched me? When all denied, Peter and they that

were with him said, Master, the multitude throng thee and press thee, and

sayest thou, Who touched me?

46 And Jesus said, Somebody hath touched me: for I perceive that virtue is

gone out of me.

In our focus upon the women with the issue of blood, who had suffered with

this affliction for 12 long years.

In our focus upon the miraculous faith that it took to get her to seek out

Christ for her healing.

In our focus upon the divine healing that took place long that road.

We have lost focus upon the most glaring fact of this whole matter:

It wasn't that Jesus healed- He had done so many times.

It wasn't even that He had healed someone who had been afflicted for a

long period of time:

No- he had healed another woman who had been sick for 18 years

And another who had been blind since birth!

It wasn't even the fact that she should not have been there