When You’ve Prayed for Years and Nothing’s Changed
You've prayed for the same thing for years. You've asked, you've waited, you've tried to keep the faith. And nothing's changed. The illness is still there. The relationship is still broken. The longing hasn't gone anywhere.
If that's you, this Sunday's talk at Crowd was for you.
Mark Buchannan took us into one of the most beautiful stories in the gospels — a woman who'd been ill for twelve years, lost everything trying to get well, and was invisible to the world around her. Mark called the talk Bumping Into Jesus Isn't Enough, and the question he sat with was a quiet, hard one. What happens when faith feels like a long wait with no answer?
Twelve years of getting worse, not better
Mark 5:21-43 holds two healings stitched together. Jesus is on his way to the home of Jairus, a synagogue leader whose daughter is dying. Important man, urgent need, big crowd following. And in the middle of all that noise, somebody almost no one notices reaches out and touches him.
She's been bleeding for twelve years. She's spent everything she had on doctors, and the text says plainly — instead of getting better, she grew worse. Under Jewish ritual law, her condition meant she was unclean. Anyone she touched would also become unclean. Any seat she sat on. So she lived as an outcast — physically exhausted, financially ruined, socially invisible, and (in the religious framework she'd grown up in) cut off from God.
She wasn't supposed to be in that crowd at all. She'd taken a real risk by being there.
And here's what Mark drew out — hundreds of people were touching Jesus that day, jostling him from every side. But only one of them had a supernatural encounter. The difference wasn't proximity. The difference was that she reached.
"It's not enough to be in the crowd. It's not even enough to be in the same room as Jesus. We have to reach out."
Healing in the corner of his cloak
The detail Mark drew out here was lovely. The text says the woman touched the tassel on the corner of Jesus' shawl. The Hebrew word for that corner — kanaf — is the same word that gets translated "wings."
Centuries earlier, Malachi prophesied that the Messiah would "rise with healing in his wings." Mark, growing up singing Hark! The Herald Angels Sing in his dad's chapel in Liverpool, used to wonder what the line "risen with healing in his wings" was on about. Jesus didn't have wings. Turns out the song was pointing back to Malachi all along — healing in the corner of his robes. Healing in the place this woman reached out and touched.
She'd worked out who Jesus was. And she did the one thing she had strength for. She reached.
What Jesus does next is the bit you don't want to miss
He stops the whole procession. He leaves an important man waiting with a dying daughter and an urgent crowd — and Jesus stops to find the woman who touched him.
She comes forward, terrified, and tells him everything. And Jesus says, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering."
She's the only woman in the gospels Jesus ever calls "daughter." He takes a father's role with her — which, in that culture, was the most affection and dignity he could publicly offer a woman he wasn't married to. He doesn't just heal her body. He restores her name, her belonging, her place. And he does it loudly, in front of the synagogue leader who'd have been the one to declare her unclean in the first place.
The fuller reading of "go in peace and be freed from your suffering" is something like come into my peace, and be permanently released from your scourging. Not just an instant fix. A lasting wholeness. Shalom.
But what about when nothing's changed?
Sharon asked the question a lot of us are sitting with. What about people who've been praying for years and not got the answer? What about the ones who reached, and reached, and are still waiting?
Dave took this one. He has an ongoing illness. He prays for healing for other people and sees God do remarkable things. He's not been healed himself.
He talked about the time he got angry — couldn't pray for anyone for about three months because he was so confused about why God was healing through him but not healing him. Then one early morning, around 2am, he heard something settle in his spirit. Not an audible voice, just a sense. "Dave, you've never healed anybody. It's me who does the healing."
He's still ill. He still wants to be well — more than anyone, he said. But his focus has shifted. "He may not have healed you yet, but he's not abandoned you. He's right there with you."
Mark shared about his mum, who had MS for as long as he could remember. She was at Spring Harvest one year, sat next to another woman in a wheelchair who also had MS. The other woman was healed and walked out of the big top carrying her own wheelchair. His mum wasn't.
"To the day she died, she was adamant God is a God who heals."
That's the line Mark has carried with him. We don't know why some are healed now and some aren't. What we do know is the kind of Jesus we're reaching for. And — Mark was firm on this — we never heap guilt on the person who's not healed. That isn't how Jesus treated the woman in the crowd, and it isn't how he treats us.
So how do we actually push through?
Ellis asked the question directly in the comments — might sound silly, but how do you push through?
The community had a few honest answers between them:
Use what you've got. The woman didn't have much strength left after twelve years of bleeding. But the little she had was enough. We can always open our mouth — speak what's true about God even when we can't feel it. Mark referenced Derek Prince's practice of saying scripture aloud, putting the right words in our mouth.
Camp in scripture. Dave's instinct is to find what God's word says about whatever he's facing, settle there, and start to speak it back. "It stirs faith in me. It makes a way."
Don't do it alone. We're not built to push through in isolation. Find people you trust who can sit with you, open scripture with you, and pray for you when you've run out of words.
Pray first instead of panicking first. Alicia put this in the chat and it landed. Sometimes pushing through to touch Jesus just means going to him first, before we go anywhere else.
The line that ties it all together
Right at the end, Mark landed on this.
"Jesus doesn't have a VIP list."
In Mark 5, both the synagogue leader (high status, well-connected) and the unnamed bleeding woman (no status, no name) get exactly what they need from the same Jesus. There's no queue. No waiting list for the right kind of person. Both reach. Both are met.
Whoever you are tonight — whether you've been praying for two weeks or twelve years — that's still true.
A word for the ones still waiting
Near the end of the conversation, a viewer called Zoe wrote in the comments. "I've had a debilitating illness for 5 years but only just come to God. I've prayed for healing but not received it yet. This conversation is good to hear and continues to give me hope."
If that's where you are too — keep reaching. The Jesus who stopped for the woman in the crowd is the same Jesus who notices you. He sees the years. He sees the asking. He sees the ache you've not put into words yet.
You're not invisible to him. You're not on the wrong list. And whatever's still unanswered tonight, he hasn't moved.
If this resonated, watch the full talk at crowd.church — and come hang out with us next Sunday as we keep going through Jesus the Revolutionary.
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Sharon: Hello and welcome to Crowd Church. I was expecting much more of an introduction then, but here we are. I'm Sharon, and I'm joined today by two absolute legends, as my husband would say. I've got Dave.
Dave: Great to be here.
Sharon: Yeah, I always love speaking to Dave. He's always got fabulous stories about what God is doing. In him, through him, through the people that he meets. and I'm also joined by Mark Buchannan. Hi, Mark. Oh, I can't hear him. He's disappeared. Hopefully you can see him. Mark's joining us from Yorkshire, and he will be speaking to us today. We're in a series which is Jesus the Revolutionary. I would have got Dave to say it for you, but apparently he— I can't. He struggles with the word revolutionary. So, yeah, so we've been in this series for the last few weeks, and Mark's going to be continuing in that series. So as usual, join in the comments. We love to hear from you. Say hi, be part of the community. For those of you who are new and don't know what, what all this is about, so basically we're a church. in a moment, Mark is going to bring the talk, and then after that, we have what we call Conversation Street. Where me and Dave and also Mark will just— and you, if you, you can join in online, we'll talk about the talk and pick up any of your questions and just what really stood out to us. And our prayer today is really that for everyone watching, that you will hear the heart of God, that his Spirit would speak to you. So I think— do we have— have we got Mark?
Mark Buchannan: Yeah, I think you have.
Sharon: Yeah, lovely. Yay! Okay, great. So I'm gonna hand over to Mark. yeah, here we go.
Mark Buchannan: Well, thank you, and it's, great to be with you again. I think this might be my fourth time at Crowd Church, so, it's really nice to be back. And this is a brilliant passage that, you've given me to talk on. So this is a story that comes in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, but I'm going to take the version in Mark. There, some of the accounts are incredibly short about this story, but Mark gives us the most detail, and as we know, as a biblical principle, anything said by a Mark is, of great weight and authority, isn't it? so let me just read through this story, and I just want to make a couple of comments. But when I was thinking of a title, I was thinking, Bumping Into Jesus Is Not Enough. And this is particularly, a story for the desperate. We're going to hear about a desperate woman who, in a moment of Faith and Revelation encounters Jesus in a way that literally changes her entire life. So I don't know how life is going for you if you're listening to this talk, whether you're live or, or later, but I've had a few desperate phases in the last couple of years, and I've been a Christian a very, very long time, but in some ways it's a big so what. It's not enough to be a Christian. It's not enough to have been a Christian for ages. It's not even enough to be in the same room as Jesus. And that's why I'm saying just bumping into Jesus isn't going to cut it necessarily. But when we read this story, we're going to find out a woman who— I think the Holy Spirit just drops it into her, but she knows what to do. And when she does, unbelievable power is unlocked. And that's what we want, isn't it? We don't want to walk this life on our own. So Jesus is just back from ministering on the other side of the Sea of Galilee. He's cast multiple demons out of a man who was so demonized that he was terrorizing the area. Huge supernatural encounter, comes back over the next morning, bumps into one of the leaders of the synagogue called Jairus, whose daughter is dying, who begs Jesus to come and heal her. Jesus agrees, and off he goes, ostensibly to be helping Jairus. And it goes in verse 25, it says, a large crowd followed and pressed around him. So Jesus is literally surrounded by people. They're all interested to see what will this teacher do, what's going to happen next. So this is a, a big crowd, and in the crowd there's a woman who we find out in verse 26 says, and a woman was there who'd been subject to bleeding for 12 years. She'd suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better She grew worse. So here's a woman with continuous bleeding. It's a hemorrhagic complaint of some sort. So that's a— I've never had one, but that sounds like an awful thing to have. But she's also a woman which the Old Testament declares she's unclean if she's bleeding. So even monthly bleeding would put her unclean for days, but if you've got continuous bleeding then you were unclean, anybody you touched were unclean, even if you sat down on a bench or a stone, that bench or the stone would become unclean. So imagine that you've got a physical problem that's causing you tremendous pain, it's burned up all the money that you've ever had, nothing has helped, but you're a social outcast and you're ritually unclean. And as you would understand it, That means you getting into the presence of God or having anything to do with God is a problem. So you've got social stigma as well, and shame, rejection. So she's carrying a huge amount on her shoulders, as if it wasn't bad enough that she was ill in the way that she was. And it says there that when she heard about Jesus, she joined the crowd. Now technically, she shouldn't have done that. That's against Jewish ritual law. She should have had nothing to do with anybody in that crowd, and anybody who spotted her would be able to point her out to the temple authorities or the synagogue leaders, and she would have been forced out and sent outside the town until she was clean. So she's taking a big risk, but she's desperate. What's she gonna do? You know, and sometimes depends on our character a bit, doesn't it? But I tend to go in on myself when I'm under real pressure, or as my wife sometimes says, I tend to sulk. So I, I think it's more complicated than just sulking, but still, I'm an introvert and I go in on myself, but that's not helpful. We have to do our part, don't we? We've got to reach out. So this woman, it says she comes up behind Jesus, and then in verse 28 it says, because she thought to herself 'If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.' So there's no Jewish tradition that would have told her that was the right thing to do. There would have been no scripture that she knew that told her that's the right thing to do. So that thought has probably just dropped into her head. Or was it the Holy Spirit? So she somehow knows that Jesus is the person who can help her, and she's heard the stories. She knows that he's been healing in the region, maybe even the news about what's just happened on the other side of the lake has already got to the town. But she knows Jesus is the right person, but she also knows, I've got to do something, so what shall I do? And it says she came up from behind. So there's people all around Jesus, bumping into him, jostling him, and she, because she knows it's important not to be seen for as long as possible, basically sneaks up behind Jesus. And he touches— she touches him. And it says in verse 29, immediately her blood bleeding stopped, and she felt in her body that she was free from her suffering. She felt in her body. So just touching Jesus healed her, and so it healed her so spectacularly that she knew she'd been healed. Now here's the thing that intrigues me about this, passage, and this is why I gave it the title I did. But hundreds of people, or dozens of people, people minimum would have touched Jesus. They were literally banging into him. But as far as we know, on this particular occasion, in this crowd, the only person who has a supernatural encounter with Jesus is this woman. So something about her coming up to Jesus, albeit from behind, where she thinks she can do it in secret— and I'm sure she wasn't expecting to have any kind of conversation with him— but she touches his garment and she's healed. Now it literally says she touched the tassels of his shawl. So in the Old Testament, and actually if you ever go to Israel and you see the Hasidim, the Hasidic Jews, they still wear the prayer shawl. It's got blue threads woven in to the tassels on the corner. Those tassels are called tzitzit. And they are there from the book of Numbers as a reminder of God's law and God's covenant with his people. That's what she touches, right on the corner of his cloak, his shawl. Now the corner, it's the Hebrew word is kanaf, and it literally is the same word that can be translated wings. And as preparing for this, it solved a mystery that I've had since I was a very, very small boy. Growing up in Liverpool, going to Jubilee Chapel where my dad was the pastor, and we'd be singing hymns and songs. And I was doing that from the age of, I don't know, 2 or something. And the number of times I've sat there and sung the song Trust and Obey, 'cause there's snow all the way, and thinking, I don't get this at all, I don't understand why this is in this song. It was years later they said, no, no, it's 'cause there's no other way. So the other one that used to trouble me though was in Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, one of my favourite Christmas carols. It says, talking about Jesus born to give them second birth, risen with healing in his wings. And again, I remember as a small boy thinking, but I didn't know Jesus had wings. But it turns out that that's actually referring to a messianic prophecy in Malachi chapter 4, verse 2, that says 'But for you who fear my name, the Son of Righteousness will rise with healing in his wings.' And that was seen as a foretelling of the Messiah, that he would rise with healing in the corner of his robes. So it looks pretty clear that this woman, she had a bit of an understanding of the Hebrew Bible. She'd obviously come to the conclusion that Jesus was actually the Messiah And if he is the Messiah, there's healing in his wings, in the tassels on the corner of his cloak. And she reaches out and she's immediately transformed and healed, and she knows that the problem is solved. What's really interesting though is Jesus— this is verse 30— at once Jesus realised that power had gone out from him. He turned round in the crowd and asked, 'Who touched my clothes?' And the disciples say, 'But Jesus, people are crowding against you, and yet you're asking, who touched me?' In other words, they're saying, you're never gonna know. But Jesus kept looking around to see who'd done it, and then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet, trembling with fear, and told him the whole truth. So she confesses that, I'm sorry, so sorry, I know I shouldn't have done it, I know I'm ritually unclean, I know I've probably ruined everything for you, but I just knew you're the Messiah, you can heal me, and I have to do something about it. Now, later on in the Bible, we know that faith without works is dead, it says in James chapter 2. And we see it with Bartimaeus, the blind man, in Mark chapter 10, where Jesus goes up to a man who's totally blind, obviously blind, and says, 'What would you like me to do for you?' And you think, 'But that's kind of crass, isn't it? Of course, everybody knows he needs to be made to see.' But he wants to hear Bartimaeus say, 'I want to see.' And in the same way, this woman is expressing her faith. She's not just bumping into Jesus, she's deliberately reaching out to touch Jesus in faith, believing that he is the answer to her need, and she's healed. And then to top it all, when Jesus realizes that it's her, in verse 34, he says to her, "Daughter." It's the only woman that Jesus ever refers to as "daughter." So Jesus takes the father role towards her, not a brother role that you would normally do with somebody who was a woman that you weren't married to. You would treat her like your sister, but he treats her like his daughter. He's showing her special affection and favour, and he says, 'Your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.' Now, 'Go in peace and be freed from your suffering' literally says, 'Come into my peace.' and be permanently released from your scourging, is the language that it uses there. So Jesus is doing a number of things. He's saying, you don't have to apologize for reaching out and touching me. That was perfectly okay. I'm actually glad that you did that, and I'm showing you the most affection and favour that I can to a woman to whom I'm not married. And I'm saying, enter into my peace So this is not just an instantaneous healing. He's saying, from now on, you're going to live in my shalom, my peace, and be permanently freed from your scourging. So this is not going to come back tomorrow. You don't have to be in fear anymore. This isn't going to happen to you again. And I'm saying all this out loud where we've actually got one of the leaders of the synagogue in the crowd because we're on the way to heal his daughter. So you don't have to worry about being ritually unclean either. You don't have to worry about being ashamed or rejected. So I haven't just healed you, I've given you everything that you need, even the things you didn't think were possible and even the things you didn't know were even available to you, all because you put two and two together, saw me for who I really am, and then you touched me as Jesus the Messiah. I just think that's incredible. We don't even know her name, and yet so much of what we know about God is encapsulated in this story. So for you and me, there's going to be times of desperation. Living life is hard. Things happen that we can't control. Things happen that we don't want. But in that, we need to see Jesus for who he is. We need to understand that Jesus is our means of provision. We need to have confidence that he loves us so much that he's going to do whatever we need if we put our need and our faith into action. So we don't just sit here saying, "Look, I'm in church, I'm listening to worship music." No, that's being in the crowd. We need to just go one step beyond that and say, "Yeah, not only am I in the crowd, but I'm going to reach and touch Jesus." Praying is a fantastic way to do that. Speaking in tongues is a fantastic way to do that. Reading scriptures that in increase our knowledge of what Jesus can do and who he is. All of that gives us that moment of intimacy, and when we get that and we reach out and touch him, just like this woman, he will heal us, he will deliver us, he will help us, he will hear us, and he won't stop there. He'll show us his affection, and he'll also help us resolve all the side issues that come from the problems that we've got. And if he did it for a woman who we don't even know about, he's absolutely, definitely going to do that for those of us who've committed our lives to him, made him Lord of our lives, and are walking with him. This is here to inspire us to reach out, touch Jesus for what we need. Let me just pray. Lord Jesus, it's just amazing how kindly you treat this woman and how you're happy that she's reached out and that you knew something had happened and that you made sure she knew what had happened and you made sure that all the religious leaders, all the people who were just looking for some gosh wow, all the people who were wondering if you really are the Messiah, and you turned a simple momentary touch into a teaching opportunity and the complete restoration of this woman so that she could have a life and a great life and live in peace. And Father, I pray that for anybody who's listening to this who's desperate, Lord, give them the courage and the faith to reach out and ask you for your help, to touch you, Lord, and give them the confidence to expect that you will treat them just as kindly and comprehensively as you treated this woman. Amen.
Sharon: Oh, thanks for that, Mark. I always love hearing you speak, and in my fluster at the beginning, I realised I didn't properly really say who you were for those who haven't heard you before. So, the connection with Mark is that my husband used to be involved with Traidcraft, and then Mark became involved in Traidcraft, and I think not actually at the same time, but they were connected through that, got on really well. And Mark has carried on with fair trade and sells online, yeah, fair trade stuff, and also has lots of crazy stories about what God's done and answers to prayer. So if you ever get the chance to speak to him in person, also a fabulous person to speak to. just want to say hi to people in the comments as well before we get into discussing. So we've got— oh, there's loads— Sonia, Ade, Roz. Hi everybody! Catherine, Alicia, Ellis, Matt, Dan. Am I missing anybody? I apologize if I missed anybody. But yeah, we've got quite a few comments coming through which hopefully we'll pick up on soon. But Dave, any thoughts? What, what were you thinking as Mark was speaking?
Dave: Loved it, Mark. It was great. thank you. It's just a faith-inspiring talk. And, for me, just the testimony, I think she'd heard— probably heard on the grapevine, even though she's isolated and she's not supposed to be out 'You know, I'm sure she'll have heard about Jesus and how he set people free and, and all these things, healed the sick.' And she was just— I think of her desperation. Wasn't desperate just to think, 'Oh, I could do with meeting him, maybe he'll come past my house.' She got up and she moved towards him. And, just that faith to go out knowing that there could be consequences and just pushing through. But I think just that power of what she said, the power of testimony, we need to realise that the power of testimony can bring life and change people's whole situations.
Sharon: Yeah, I kind of like the fact that you've picked up on that. It's like she wasn't passive.
Dave: No, absolutely not.
Sharon: And that her faith, it— we, you've kind of touched on it a bit, that faith leads to action. And that pursuit rather than, like you just said, just sitting back.
Dave: And I think we need to realise that, her physical state— she's bled for 12 years, she's going to be weak, she's not going to be in a great— yeah, way. And she would have had to push through a crowd. I'm sure the crowd didn't say, oh, let this lady through. Yeah, but she determined to press through, and it just inspires me. For myself and for others to say, if you need a touch from God this evening, push through, push beyond where you are, and reach out to touch him. She didn't need Jesus to pray for her, she just knew all she needed to do. She didn't have to stop Jesus, she didn't have to get ministry from him, she just had to touch him and her life would be changed. That's her testimony. Amazing. Inspiring.
Sharon: One of the other things I like about this story is I think you kind of get a sense of that desperation, which I think we can— many of us can relate to at different points in our lives of just that, I guess we kind of can put ourselves in her shoes in a sense, and just thinking sometimes you can feel really lonely even in a crowd. And I just wonder if That's how she felt, because really she shouldn't have been there, she shouldn't have been seen. So it's almost like trying to make yourself invisible in that situation, but also being like rejected by people. And again, that they're all kind of emotions that we can relate to, aren't they? And, yeah, I think the Bible can be quite real and raw about the emotions that we experience. Yeah, but that whole sense of pressing through. So a question for you guys, have you been in situations where you've felt that same desperation and you've had to like push through? Also, for anyone that's watching on the live stream, do you relate to that aspect of it— desperation, having to push through in pursuit of God?
Dave: For me, many, many, many, many times and would have needed a touch from God, whether it's been, physically. So, a number of years ago I was with a— we had a Year Team, and Paul— I don't know if you were on that Year Team, Sharon— but they were up in the Brecon Beacons doing a whole host of things, activities. Brecon Beacons is where they train the SAS. And I fell, and I didn't fall very far, It must have been maybe 2 or 3 feet. And, but I'd got separated from them and I was on the top of this mountain and I had to get helicoptered off. And, they took me to the hospital and I wasn't in a great state. And, I was gonna have some real difficulties walking with— and with balance and a whole host of things. And, I came home and I was just really desperate for God. You know, I think it was 35 at the time. I wasn't— it was unlikely that I was going to be able to run around the garden with my son and kick a ball and all the things that were so important for him. And I remember, the elders at the time, and the most unlikely people to ever break into your house, but they broke into our house because I was upstairs and I was physically— couldn't walk. And they broke in to pray for me, and that just made me angry. And, I remember on a Saturday evening, I didn't know they held a prayer meeting in church. But I remember that evening just crying out to God, God, just come and intervene, just come and intervene, just come and intervene. And 3 times Julie woke me up, said, you're having a nightmare or something. But, I wasn't. I was actually just— my very being was crying out to God. And then the next morning, I was utterly and completely healed. The, gadget that I had on my leg and on my neck, I was able to take off. I had a hole in my cruciate ligaments about the size of a 50p that was miraculously healed. So yeah, but quite a few times like that, you know.
Sharon: And, I don't doubt it, Dave.
Dave: Oh yeah, you know, it's just, he's, he's there. Yeah, he's just, he's just there, you know. And I was desperate, and, and I know there are desperate people Maybe, people who are watching today who are desperate, and, and they've been desperate and God hasn't healed them yet. But what they mustn't forget, he may not have healed you yet, but he's not abandoned you. He's right there with you, and he wants to minister to you.
Sharon: Yeah, we've got some great comments which I— and a great question which I do want to pick up on. But Mark, first, if I go back to you, do you have any stories of when you've been really desperate and had to make that active choice, that pushing through?
Mark Buchannan: Yeah, it's, it's, it's a while back now, but it was hard to know which one to pick, isn't it? But many, many years ago, I, I went through a divorce, and that meant my kids were going to move to a different country, and that was going to happen on the Thursday. and I'd been prayer walking for years and years and years with Graham Kendrick, who's a good friend of mine, and we were praying, and I was just utterly distraught because I just felt there's nothing. I can't stop it. I've got no rights to make this not happen. And it just felt like the end of the world, literally the end of the world. It's probably the most broken I've ever been. And we were praying together in tongues, and if you pray with somebody regularly, you know what they sound like when they pray in tongues. And suddenly, he's a very mild-mannered man, and he was praying. It was very guttural and quite aggressive, which is not him at all. and, afterwards, I said, well, do you have a sense of what you were praying? And it, it came out, it was all about the Lord's absolute ruthless violent determination to protect the relationship between me and my girls, but that I needed to hand them over to him. And that, yeah, in my strength, there was nothing I could do at all. But it just gave me a sovereign peace. And then for 13 years, I was backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards. And literally, it was about 12, 13 years later, we were at the top of the Empire State Building. It was the birthday of one of my girls. And I just started crying like a baby in front of, hundreds of people all crammed on that top deck there, because I suddenly realised, I thought, we've made it. We've actually done it. All that thing that I feared, that I, I'd lose them and that we wouldn't have a connection. And we were having an absolute ball driving up the East Coast of the States. We got to New York, we were up there enjoying ourselves, and I just thought, yeah, everything that he said he would do, he did. but the knowledge that he had spoken, that's what I needed, that's what centred me. So it's probably the most dramatic desperation answer I've had.
Sharon: Yeah, because we have those dramatic seasons, don't we? Where the emotion is very deep and very raw, and then there are the, just the general everyday kind of scuffles. Just picking up on some of the comments— oh, so many, I'm losing my place here. Alisha's put, I always think of her actions, the woman, as courageous too, especially when she admits she's the one who's touched him despite her fear. Yeah, yeah, there is that fear and courage. I think courage is in a sense stronger in the face of fear, isn't it, when you have to overcome that. Matt's put— I love this— for me, she wanted to be made whole, but when she touched Jesus, she was made well. That's partial wholeness. Calling her daughter, Jesus made her whole, not just healed. Yeah, because he's restoring her to the community in that sense, isn't he? And then, yeah, and then we've got a question from Alice. he says, might sound like a silly question, but how do you push through? Not a silly question at all. It's— I think that's kind of like language we can use. It becomes a bit juggling. So guys, how do you push through?
Dave: Well, I think she's in a crowd. She's literally in a crowd.
Sharon: Yeah.
Dave: And to get to where she wants to get, even though she's not in good physical condition, she just literally presses into people. And by the way, the fact that she touches those people, they are now unclean. They may not know it, but according to the law, they are now unclean. And she literally is having to move them out of the way, you know. And she's not got a whole lot of strength, but what she has she just is moving them out the way to get to where she needs to be.
Sharon: How would that translate? So, so say for example, we've got people watching who are in a desperate situation and we're saying push through to God. Well, what would that look like in this situation where you're not physically in a crowd trying to get to a physical Jesus? But what does it— what does it look like?
Dave: Do you want to go first, Mark?
Mark Buchannan: Yeah, I think It's, it's using what we've got, isn't it? And the thing, when you're that desperate, you think, I just, I'm so stuck, there's just nothing that I can do. But we can always go to God and say, my life feels like the sky is falling on my head, but I believe you're the God who can help me, who can heal me, who can restore my marriage, who can, help me in my business, help me be a better mum, a better dad, a better uncle, auntie, whatever it is that we have. I think to give God what we have, and I think that the point David's just made is, look, what strength did she have after 12 years of bleeding, but she does manage to get through? You think, well, it turns out that the little she had was enough. And I think often part of feeling desperate is you just lose all hope, don't you? And you think, one of the things that we can do to help to, bolster the little bit of hope we've got is to confess out God's goodness, is to be thankful, to thank him for the things that we've seen him do, and to say out loud, literally out loud. We were talking about Derek Prince and his proclamations before we went live, and I think that's the point, isn't it? We need to put the right words in our mouth. Scripture's full of the right words. So yeah, there's a psalm or a passage of scripture, even if it feels irrelevant to the situation, I think We just need to use our lips. And I think it doesn't take any energy to be able to move your lips. It just takes will, doesn't it? And courage, like somebody's already said about this, this woman. So I would say deliberately position ourselves as in a place of thanksgiving and expectancy by speaking out what we know of God's ability to heal, to help, to save, to restore. And that can be a first move.
Sharon: Yeah, great.
Dave: I think finding out, says, well, what does God's Word— what helps me most is find out what does God's Word say about this.
Sharon: Yeah.
Dave: And then I will just camp there and, as it were, start to proclaim God's Word. Because I don't have to remind him, because he doesn't have amnesia or anything. But I just start to speak out God's Word, and it stirs faith in me. And it makes a way. But I think the other thing as well, that, it's not necessarily fitting in with her story, but we're not called to do this walk on our own, that God has generally put people around us.
Sharon: Yeah.
Dave: And, we need to find people who we trust.
Sharon: Yeah.
Dave: And who can walk on this journey with us, who can open up the word of God with us and pray for us and hold us accountable.
Sharon: Yeah.
Mark Buchannan: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sharon: Great answers. Alicia's also, put one in which picks up on what you said, Mark. so sometimes pushing through to touch Jesus for me means praying first instead of panicking first. Yeah, so it's picking up on the prayer aspect. Dave picked up on the, like, really getting into scripture and just going, God, if this is your word, show me, like, teach me from this. And the community aspect. I think an example from me as well would be, one that I've talked about loads of times, but, when I would— when my faith just really wasn't working and I'm like, God, you've got to do something, for me that actually meant physically moving. That was how I ended up coming to Liverpool, because I'm like, God, if you don't sort this thing out for me, I'm, I'm gonna walk away from you, and you've got this one last chance to sort this out, which is how I ended up in Liverpool. But again, even that was like I felt compelled. It was like God's Spirit compelling me up here. So I think there's having that openness to God's Spirit to lead. And I do believe that when we cry out to him, he does answer. maybe not all the ways the way that we expect or want, but yeah. Mark, did you have something else?
Mark Buchannan: Yeah, it sounded like it's interesting that she never said to Jesus what the problem was. She just touched him.
Sharon: Yeah.
Mark Buchannan: And you think, well, but she got the healing that she needed, not the healing that the person next to her needed. And I think often we tend to get so focused on what's going wrong that that's front and centre, but of course that just kills your faith. So in a slightly counterintuitive way, actually, probably saying to the Lord, here's my problem, please do something about it, isn't always that helpful, a, because he knows what the problem is. I think first, at least, let's get into his presence, you know. And it says that we enter his gates with thanksgiving, we go into his courts with praise. And I think thanksgiving and praise put us in the right relationship to the Lord. And sometimes you don't need to say any more than that. That's all that's required. Other times we do need to say, listen, I'm blind, can I see? But I think, I— especially when we're borderline panicking, it's really important not to confess out everything that's making us afraid because it makes us more afraid. But if we proclaim God's goodness, proclaim God's faithfulness, proclaim God's power, proclaim God's love and his mercy, that puts us in a way better position. And then sometimes that's all we need, and bang, it's sorted. Other times then we can go ahead and say, can you please help me with this?
Dave: Yeah, yeah.
Sharon: And we've got some discussion going on in the, the group chat about, how she's not named. Yeah, yeah, and like many of the people in, in these stories, they're not given a name. Although Matt has put in, in Eastern Orthodox tradition she's named Fotina, meaning the luminous one. But this name comes from church tradition rather than than the actual script, the text itself. But yeah, interesting one.
Dave: I think, I think, was it Matthew said before, in the process she's just a woman without a name with a disease.
Mark Buchannan: Yeah.
Dave: Wherever she goes, whatever she touches, whoever she touches, she contaminates them. And then she meets Christ Jesus, she touches him. And the, in the paradigm that they'd been working with, he would have been unclean.
Sharon: Yeah.
Dave: But the power of God that is in him, she touches him and she is made whole. And I love it. And it's then on that revelation that she was no longer bleeding, is that she knew that she was whole. That's where you find your identity. When you have identity, you know You just know who you are.
Sharon: Yeah.
Dave: And that's when he calls her daughter.
Sharon: Yeah.
Dave: And I think, there is a process, that we need to keep on the whole story, you know. So it starts not naming her, but, and he finishes with daughter. Yeah. Your faith. He admonishes her. Shouldn't even be at the beginning, shouldn't have been out. Daughter, your faith has made you whole.
Sharon: Yeah.
Mark Buchannan: Wow.
Dave: Jesus said that to her.
Sharon: Yeah.
Dave: You know, she's on my list to talk to when I get to heaven. Yeah, that's just amazing. You know, daughter, your faith, love it.
Sharon: I love the compassion of Jesus that this brings out as well. Like, where needed, Jesus is so gentle and compassionate and gracious and generous. But then in other stories where people need it, he can be really to the point and, quite blunt, can't he? And yeah. So I, I love that about this story. so now in my head, this, this story is great, isn't it? This woman, she's in a difficult situation, she pushes through, she touches Jesus, she gets her healing, she's restored. But I know there's loads of people out there who've been praying for years, not got the answer that they wanted. Any words of wisdom? Just throw you guys in.
Dave: Well, she had it for 12 years.
Sharon: Yeah.
Dave: And I don't know how long— maybe, well, it wasn't more than 3 years. I don't know what her exposure to Jesus had been in that time.
Sharon: Yeah.
Dave: But, relationship with Jesus isn't about everything being perfect, you know. there are many Christians and, they're not in a great place at all. I had a testimony just about 2 weeks ago of a guy who's in a persecuted nation, and they took him and they covered him in petrol and they set fire to him. And within days he was sharing the gospel, and he said, 'I thank God that they only burnt my legs.' They covered him head to toe and set fire to him.
Sharon: Wow.
Dave: You know, and, I would say, it's not about come to Jesus and everything is okay. It's about come to Jesus and I'll never leave you or abandon you. So wherever we go, yes, we'll walk through the fire and we will feel the heat. You know, we might get singed a bit. You know, we'll walk through, the water and we won't be overcome, but we will get wet. And I think, you look at that church in Acts, which we're studying in church at the moment, and, the church flourishes in difficulty.
Sharon: Yeah.
Dave: And we need to realise that, you know, some of us have sicknesses, and, you might have a disease and, you're getting medical treatment for yourself. Oh my God, I keep hearing about you, God, healing people, blah blah blah. And, you know what, I, I've got a disease, and a few years ago when I got it, I just thought, God, I'm seeing all these miracles praying for people, blah, blah, blah. We've seen people with HIV being healed, a whole host of phenomenal things. It's amazing. And then I got sick, and I'm like, God, I don't understand. And I was angry, and I was confused, and I was still ministering, and I couldn't pray for anybody for about 3 months because I was angry. And I'm like, God, how can I pray for somebody when I'm sick? And you know, I'm convinced that God speaks to you in a language you understand. And I just felt in my inner being God say to me, 'Dave, you've never healed anybody. It's me who does the healing.' You know, and I still have that disease, but I am fervent about being a vessel open for God to use in praying for people who are sick.
Sharon: So yeah, and I think over the time that you've been ill, it's that you just seem to have more and more stories of what God's doing both in you and through you, and just like the people that you come in contact with just having words of knowledge and stuff to pray and seeing all this stuff happen. So on the one hand, it looks like you're having this amazing time in the middle of the fact that actually you're still ill, still suffering many times.
Dave: I haven't been healed yet.
Sharon: Yeah.
Dave: And nobody wants to be healed more than me.
Sharon: Yeah.
Dave: But, I trust him.
Sharon: So how did you get over your anger?
Dave: How did I get over my anger? well, one, it wasn't doing me any good. It was shrinking faith. It was making me distant from God. And I just, I've always known that God, since I came to faith, that God has loved me and he was faithful to me when I wasn't that faithful to him. And, I just said, God, my favourite Bible verse, I'll never leave you or abandon you. And I said, God, I can't feel you, but I know because this is what your word says. Changed everything. Yeah, changed everything.
Sharon: Yeah, I, again, I think I might have shared this before, but I've had times when my mind was an absolute mess, and emotionally wise, I couldn't grasp anything that the Bible was saying. But I was like, okay, your word says this. So this is what I'm going to believe. And I, in my head, I had this image— I don't know if it's an accurate image— of, flying a plane and not being able to see anything around because it was all foggy, but just having to rely on the instruments. And those instruments were like the word of God. So it's like, okay, I'm just gonna go with this. I can't see any of it, I can't feel it, I, I'm not understanding it right now, but the word of God says this, so I'm going to believe this. And eventually it was like the fog clears and it's like, ah, yeah, that is right, I can see it.
Dave: Yeah, I think— sorry, sorry, I think I remember clearly, one evening— well, one early morning, about 2 AM, in those difficult times, I remember just reading through scripture and I just jumped out of the story. I knew, where, where the guys are then, and, and they say this and that. You say, even if God doesn't do— we believe he can.
Sharon: Yeah.
Dave: But even if he doesn't, yet will we praise him.
Sharon: Yeah, yeah.
Dave: And you know, you might be, listening or watching this evening, fix your heart on him, not for what he can do for us, but for who he is. He saved our souls and restored us to right relationship with God. That's the greatest healing, that any of us can receive. And listen, I really want to be— I'm not making an excuse, I want to be healed more than anybody, you know. I'm not— I don't make excuses, you know. I don't— you know, there's a handful of people I talk about my disease to, but my focus is on him because it's him we have to trust.
Sharon: Yeah, that's great. Marco, what about you? Have you got any words of wisdom for people who maybe are struggling like that?
Mark Buchannan: I think it's a very, very delicate area, isn't it? So my mum was in a— my mum had MS all as long as I can remember. My mum was in a wheelchair and she, she died with it, not of it, but she died as a very old lady. And she was in a meeting, with a— there was two of them sat side by side, both in wheelchairs, both with MS, at Spring Harvest, I think it was. And the woman next to her was sovereignly, spectacularly healed and walked out of the big top holding her wheelchair. And nothing happened to my mum. So I find that very, very challenging. But to the day she died, she was adamant God is a God who heals. So there are things that we don't understand. And I think what we'd never want to do is then heap guilt on the person who's not healed. Well, it's your fault, and you know, you obviously don't have enough faith. There's— that just doesn't help, and it's not, it's not the way Jesus reacted to this woman. But I think I would say we should behave and believe that it's on the way, at least. Yeah. So the fact that I have not been healed doesn't mean I will not be healed. Yeah. And even for her, at the start of the story, she's at the outside of the crowd, and it takes some period of time for her to get to the place where it's just a reach out and touch exercise to get in contact with Jesus. So I think sometimes there is the jostling of the crowd and circumstance. Sometimes desperation is the final bit that makes, I flippin' well will reach out and touch him because I'm so desperate. Whereas, especially us Brits, we never like to really be honest about our suffering, do we? And, I think sometimes we expend every other option first But scripturally, Jesus healed everyone who came to him. So that has to be our source of truth. But we also know people where that doesn't seem to be a straight-line experience, and some people are— die in faith for their healing. And of course, once we get to heaven, we know for a fact healing is completed at that point. So it's how we position ourselves with respect to Jesus in that time between starting to ask and receiving what we're asking for. That's where we have to be ruthless and say, but the Jesus I'm trying to reach is a healer, is a deliverer, is a comforter, is a peace giver, is a purpose giver, is a new life giver, a second chance giver. That's what we have to keep our eyes fixed on. it's frustrating that it doesn't work in black and white instant like it appears to do it in that story.
Sharon: Yeah, just, I just want to pick up on another thing. The whole thing of, so Jesus was on his way to somebody important to do a healing there, but he stopped for this woman who was a bit more of an outcast, a bit more of an unknown. And yeah, I just really want to kind of focus on that fact that Jesus stops for each of us when we reach out to him. I think a couple of weeks ago we talked about how God sees us. Last week it was, about being touched by Jesus in the good sense of that word. yeah, so this week it's really like how Jesus stops for us It's, yeah, whether we feel like we're important in society or whether we feel that we're not, he, he stopped. He listens. He, he stops for—
Mark Buchannan: Yeah, that's brilliant. Fantastic.
Sharon: Oh, anything else that you want to add, guys?
Dave: God is really good, and he knows exactly what season of life that we're in. You know, life mightn't be good The season of life we are in mightn't be good. The situation we are in mightn't be good. But you know, God knows us.
Sharon: Yeah.
Dave: And he is for us. And whether you know him yet or not, he loves you. And his love isn't conditional. It's open for all, regardless what we've done, where we've been, what we haven't done. And, You know, the Jesus that we talk about, he's just loving and compassionate. Whether he's on the way to the synagogue official to heal his daughter who's dying, or whether it's this lady who shouldn't be out, he's there and he engages. And the great news is that Jesus is still engaging with men and women all around our nation.
Sharon: Yeah.
Dave: And around the nations of the world. And people are coming to find real life in him.
Mark Buchannan: Amen.
Sharon: Any last thoughts from you, man?
Mark Buchannan: Yeah, Jesus doesn't have a VIP list. I think the point you're making there, that's so important, isn't it? You know, is it for me? Yes, it's for you. And both the important person, who's only important in secular terms, he's not important in Jesus' eyes, she's not unimportant in his eyes, but they both get exactly what they need from the same Jesus. And I think actually maybe Jairus's faith— because the delay causes Jairus's daughter to die, and yet he hears Jesus speak like that— maybe that was Jesus bolstering his faith too, to say it's never too late. She was actually dead. He said, no, no, she's just asleep. And yeah, so yeah, never ever give up. I would say never give up.
Sharon: We've got a comment from Zoe, not the Zoe that's doing the tech. I've had a debilitating illness for 5 years but only just come to God. I've prayed for healing but not received it yet. This conversation is good to hear and continues to give me hope. Thank you.
Dave: Yeah, bless you, Z. Yeah, yeah, cool.
Sharon: I think we will wrap up Conversation Street there, but do come and join us in Live Lounge. Hopefully the, the link will appear on the screen. And just One last thing to say is actually our 28th wedding anniversary today, me and my husband. So thank you for joining us for our little celebration. Yeah, so yeah, so we'll wrap it up today. Thanks for joining us in the comments. There's been so many, I've not been able to pick up on all of them. Sorry if I've not got around to yours, but join us in Live Lounge now, or come back and join us next week for the continuation in the series on Jesus the Revolutionary. So goodbye. Thank you very much.
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