By G.D. Watson
After her faith had withstood the test of the divine silence:
2. The next barrier her faith met was the coldness of the human heart. His disciples came and besought Him, saying, "Send her away for she crieth after us." We are not to understand from these words that the disciples had ally hate or ill-will, but their words indicated that her crying embarrassed them, that they had but little sympathy and could not enter into her distress or appreciate the fervor of her prayer. Her faith pushed its way persistently over their ecclesiastical fastidiousness, their false taste of propriety. Her conscious need was so desperate it burst its way through every barrier of etiquette, human opinion, false modesty, whimsical prudence, human criticism, and like a mighty torrent tore its way through banks of human coldness across the fences of social opinion, across the nice gardens of fastidious feeling, and did not stop until it emptied itself in the great ocean heart of Jesus. This must be so with every earnest seeker after God. Our faith must surmount the coldness, the lack of sympathy, the foolish notions of propriety, whether in our friends or in cold, stiff ecclesiastics.
It often happens that souls who are seeking God either for pardon or heart-purity are too eager for human sympathy. They seem to waist a little human nursing, but oftentimes such human sympathy only hinders the work of thorough crucifixion and is an impediment to true faith.
When we see our malady in its depth and awfulness, and get a holy desperation for complete deliverance, we will not go hunting for the little plaster of human sympathy, nor be thwarted by any amount of innuendoes, or red tape, or ecclesiastical forms, but will push our way through to Jesus, right through mountains of dignitaries or forests of etiquette, or deserts of neglect. As in the case of this woman the very withdrawing of human sympathy and the tender regards of others only removes the props from the soul and accelerates its speed to Jesus.
3. The third barrier her faith had to surmount was that of caste. Jesus answered and said, "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Here was the great mountain of eastern caste put across the track of her faith. The Jews were then the high caste, and she belonged not even to the high caste heathen, but to the lower caste of Syrians. Her faith had to climb over the difficulty of an ill-favored race, of race distinctions, of mixed heredity, with all the environments and unfortunate prejudices belonging to them.
Instead of being discouraged and turned back in her prayer, these very words of seeming repulsion only intensified her yearning cry. Then she came and worshipped Him, saying, "Lord help me."
How many thousands in all ages have been turned back in their faith by these very things involved in this principle of caste. Some have thought they were not of the elect, others have been discouraged by prejudices, by low and unfortunate birth, or by some terrible heredity, or by poor and unpropitious environments. True faith is born of deep want. If souls could only appreciate the desperateness of their disease, their cry after a complete remedy would bound over all the distinctions of race, caste, predestination, birth or training, and turn every seeming repulsion into the fuel of fervor and make every seeming discouragement only u cause of more earnest prayer.
4. The fourth barrier her faith surmounted was the mortification of being called a Gentile dog. Jesus answered and said, "It is not meet to take the children's bread and to cast it to the dogs." If she had any pride, any unbelief, any faintness of heart in seeking, it would have retreated into this last ditch of being called a dog. She had in her that true heart metal which Jesus had when He "despised the cross and endured the shame." Instead of being discouraged by this epithet of common degradation, her intense soul intuitively found in it an argument for the answer of her prayer. She said, "Truth, Lord, yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's table."
She would rather be a dog than to have her daughter possessed of a devil. Such humility of heart never fails to touch the heart of God.
What a contrast to thousands who would rather be possessed with all sorts of demons than to take the place or the epithet of a dog. This woman would be content with even a dog's share. One crumb from the master's table would satisfy her longing heart. The essence of her response unveiled boundless humility and the willingness to receive whatever God would give.
This is the secret to the answer to prayer, to lose all pride, to receive meekly any epithet that God or men may apply to us, to stop dictating terms to the Lord, to yield up the form or the manner of blessing we shall receive, to receive gladly the will of God whether it comes to us in crumbs or loaves.
This is the spirit of victorious prayer. It was the bursting forth of such a faith that harmonized with the very spirit of Jesus that so pleased and honored God as to cause Jesus to say, "O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt." He gave her the key to inexhaustible treasures. She could now have her own will when that will had passed over to God. It was safe to let her have her way when that way was in the perfect agreement with the spirit of Jesus.
In various forms and degrees our faith must surmount corresponding barriers and difficulties in hers. Blessed are they who, like her, turn all apparent discouragements into encouragements, who turn all rebuffs into spurs of pursuit, whose faith gathers strength at every difficulty, from the silence of God down to the mortification of being classed with dogs.
Her daughter was made whole from that very hour.
How speedily, how beautifully, how perfectly the power of God accomplishes results when everything in us is taken out of the way of the sweep of His love and power.
THE END
