Favor For A Foreigner

A reading for Thursday, January 28, 2016: Mark 7:24-30.

Perhaps the favor of the Lord comes to those who desperately seek God. No matter who they are, or where they are from, who their parents are, or how long they have been faithful. Maybe this is the first time a person has ever gone beyond themselves in seeking the Lord our God? 

The favor of Jesus in this story goes to a woman who begs for healing for her daughter. Even though she is a foreigner, with no claim to the faith of Jesus, because she seeks God she is found worthy of the healing she seeks. Even when Jesus is trying to go without notice.

I wonder if this story isn't for us as believers, but for those we come in contact with... the unlikely traveler who suddenly finds a need to reach out to the Lord? What will we do? Will we welcome and pray for favor as Jesus did? Or will we hold back because we don't know them? Will we hope to go without notice too?

"One thing I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple." -Psalm 27:4