"He already knew" (My Journey part 2)

So I am not the best at timelines, and last night as I was thinking about the blog I remembered that Psalm 84 was given to me earlier.....I found out my vision wasn't correctable with lenses, it could be anything from MS to a swollen optic nerve treatable with steroids. That night God gave me Psalm 84.

Then about a week goes by and I have my appointment with an optimologist and an MRI. A few days later I got the phone call from the Dr. that it was a tumor and I read the Psalm again that night to remind myself of what He told me. So now we are up to speed......

So one night I was falling asleep and picturing myself as the woman that Jesus healed who has the issue of blood for 12 years. I was crawling thru a crowd just to touch the hem of His garment so I could be healed! Praying please heal me! The next day I had a phone conversation with a dear friend who has known people who have been miraculously healed. During our conversations some things I had been learning thru the small bible study I was having at my house were brought back to memory.

Over the past few months we had been reading different passages of scripture together and discussing them. I had different passages from Old and New testament picked out and I would give one passage for the girls and I to read over 2 weeks then we would meet and discuss the passage. It was such a sweet time. There are some  things I learned that were very pertinent to the situation I was now facing...

1. John 17, where Jesus prays for himself, his disciples and the believers to come. It is one of the most beautiful portions of scripture. (I encourage you to read it!) There were some amazing truths that impacted me the night we all read it together. First, Jesus is talking to the Father before He is going to face the cross and He prays for the Father to glorify Him. That part really hit me that evening, thinking about the typically humble Jesus asking His Father to glorify Him. 

"After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed: "Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son....." 

Why was He doing this?? Then as you read the rest of the passage it is clear that He wants His Father to Glorify Him so that The Glory of the Father will be shown!  

¹After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed: "Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you."

He was here to show His Father to the world, "If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father." (John 14:6-9) Just as we are to glorify the Father, His sole purpose here was to glorify the Father. Not as some big distant God, but as a Father that He loved dearly and wanted the rest to see how amazing His Father was. He wanted the glory of the Father to be poured on Him so the world would see the glory of His Father!!

And in my situation. I can ask Father in heaven will glorify Himself in this situation, in ALL areas of my life. So that the world can know who He IS! That is my whole purpose- our whole purpose in life- to know our Father and to want Him to shine thru us so that others can see how amazing and faithful and awesome He is!

"Glorify Me so they may see Your glory!"

2. Mark 7- we read this totally RANDOM chapter. I had picked out all the portions of scripture and this was the first one. Then when I went to read it the week prior to meeting - I was like "why did i pick this chapter?!". The discussion that night was rocky at first and then some AMAZING truths came out!!!

The one that came back to me for this situation was the part about Jesus healing the deaf and mute man!! 

³¹Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis.^[i] 32There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged him to place his hand on the man.

 ³³After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man's ears. Then he spit and touched the man's tongue. ³⁴He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, "Ephphatha!" (which means, "Be opened!" ). ³⁵At this, the man's ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly.

 ³⁶Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone. But the more he did so, the more they kept talking about it. ³⁷People were overwhelmed with amazement. "He has done everything well," they said. "He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak."

This story stood out to me not only for the obvious reason- that He can and has healed before (not to mention that He healed EVERY sick person that came to Him while He was here on earth). But also we discussed the randomness of Him using spit and sticking it in the man's ears and mouth! He could have just said the word and he would have been healed, but he chose spit. Why?? All thru His life He healed in different ways and we talked about how He heals according to the induviduals needs...maybe that man needed the physical touch of Jesus not just a word? Another thing we noticed was that Jesus always took the time to stop and be with the induvidual person and talk with them, be with them. It says, "After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man's ears....".

It was Him and that person when He healed them---not a big show, not Him, the person and the crowd! Our God is intimatley aquainted with us and takes time for us induvidually!

So to see that He had been preparing my heart even before I knew about the tumor was a comfort! Because He already KNEW what was coming and was preparing the ground of my heart. Part 3 coming soon (probably will have 4 parts- its been quite a JOURNEY)