no wonder He couldn't help them

Today in the One Year Bible, we read from Matthew 15:29-16:12. We are told that many come to Jesus out on a hill in the middle of nowhere. He heals them all, we're told. Wait, how is this different than a few days ago when Jesus went home and He could only do a few miracles?

It becomes pretty apparent when you think about it for a moment. The people in today's story realized they needed help. And they went and sought out the One who could help them. They went to God, they asked, and they received.

A couple days ago, we read about people who were just sitting at home. Jesus came into their midst, but they got offended by Him. They were just sitting around "watching TV" (by today's standards) and didn't realize how desperately they needed Him. Even though the Son of God, the Messiah that Israel had waited for, was out walking around and healing people, they didn't care. They sat at home and made money and ate food and thought that was enough.

Well, you see where I'm going with this. We don't want to be those people. We don't want to just eat our food and watch our shows and sit on our couch and think that's enough. We have to realize that we're broken, that we need Him to heal us. And then we need to go seek Him out (He's really not hard to find when you start looking) and ask Him to heal us.

Then we'll see what our lives look like when He touches them.

God, thanks for teaching us an important lesson from such a simple story.