Lack of focus

^37-40When they came down off the mountain the next day, a big crowd was there to meet them. A man called from out of the crowd, "Please, please, Teacher, take a look at my son. He's my only child. Often a spirit seizes him. Suddenly he's screaming, thrown into convulsions, his mouth foaming. And then it beats him black-and-blue before it leaves. I asked your disciples to deliver him but they couldn't."

 ⁴¹Jesus said, "What a generation! No sense of God! No focus to your lives! How many times do I have to go over these things? How much longer do I have to put up with this? Bring your son here."

 ^42-43While he was coming, the demon slammed him to the ground and threw him into convulsions. Jesus stepped in, ordered the vile spirit gone, healed the boy, and handed him back to his father. They all shook their heads in wonder, astonished at God's greatness, God's majestic greatness.  -- Luke 9:37-43 (The Message)

There are a number of things to note in this story.  The first is the disciples were presumed to have the ability to heal the boy.  Second, they had tried!  That is more than a great number of us are willing to do.  For their efforts Jesus hands out a rather rare blistering, parental-style lost-patience chastisement.  In his parental commentary Jesus accuses them of having no sense of God and no focus to their lives.  These appear significant to the disciples' ability to heal.  Is it peculiar that the disciples have no focus or sense of God?  Before answering for them, perhaps we should answer for ourselves?  How is your sense of God?  How is the focus in your life?  Perhaps miracles are being thwarted because we like to inject ourselves and our own sense of self into handling life.  "I got this," is the rather arrogant puffed up sense of self.  Only without God, things don't work out quite the way we would like.

In doing Therapeutic Touch it is important to learn how to allow energy to flow through you and to be the conduit rather than the source for the healing.  If you don't you will wind up exhausted, or worse, feeling the symptoms you were trying to clear. We, along with the disciples, forget we aren't the source of compassion, healing, and love.  God is.  As Jesus performs the healing the story ends with the sense of God -- the sense of awe and majesty is confirmed by all who witnessed the healing.  I take from this two lessons.  First, don't be shy about trying to work miracles -- they CAN be done!  The second is, don't bother trying if the focus in your life is not sharply on God.

Prayer:

Gracious God, sharpen the focus in our lives this day such that You are present in our touch, our prayers, our relationships.  Amen.