feb 9 2006

Mk 7:24-30
Jesus went to the district of Tyre. He entered a house and wanted no one to know about it, but he could not escape notice. Soon a woman whose daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him. She came and fell at his feet. The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth,and she begged him to drive the demon out of her daughter.
He said to her, “Let the children be fed first. For it is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” She replied and said to him, “Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps.” Then he said to her, “For saying this, you may go. The demon has gone out of your daughter.” When the woman went home, she found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.

It is a lesson to me in persisting when there is a good cause. At first it was only a certain group of people who were to be healed, but the woman did not accept the first answer of Jesus. She asked again and with pleading the case of need and was helped with her daughter's healing. I need to remember this in my prayer to persist in prayer for the most needy cases and to continue to talk with Jesus in prayer.