Desperation to Destiny Stanley Arumugam Feb 2012 - Ver.12 1 Contents Part One: The Woman's Initiative Introduction Chapter One: The Place of Desperation Chapter Two: The Point of Decision Chapter Three: The Spirit of Determination Chapter Four: The Attitude of Defiance Chapter Five: The Heart of Dedication Part Two: Christ's Response Chapter Six: Coming Out of the Crowd Chapter Seven: Called By Your Own Name Chapter Eight: Completed by His Touch 2 Introduction Have you been really desperate? So much so, that you feel you can’t breathe; that life will slip away, that tomorrow must not come; that you could end it all, that you’d rather die than go through; that you will do anything but anything to get you what you desire most; that you will beg even your enemy to save your life? These are places of deep desperation, ripe with the promise and hope of transformation. We come into a place of desperation either out of deep pain or deep promise; a place where we want to avoid death or seek abundant life. Either way, we need the touch of God to propel us into a new dimension – which cannot be achieved in our own strength. If you are in any of these places then I invite you to come on a journey with me as we learn how we can grow and discover our destiny, primarily through making space for God in our lives or allowing God to make space for His work with our willingness. Paradoxically, this place of desperation is the place where God dwells in fullness. When you feel that you have reached the end and that you cannot go one step further, when life seems to be drained of all purpose - what a wonderful opportunity to start all over again, to turn over a new page (Eileen Caddy). St John of the Cross calls this place ‘the dark night’. It is the place where we feel totally abandoned and lost; a place where even God’s presence is not felt. The life of this Carmelite monk reminds us that God is in unexpected places. For him, it was in the dark prison cell where he discovered a personal God, who he wrote of as, ‘The Bridegroom’ and ‘Lover’. Rejected, tortured and abandoned by the religious elite of his time, John found God who was lavishly and desperately reaching out to him. In his poems we learn of a God that is present in our darkest moments – a God who is more personal than ritual and religious piety – a God who transcends formulaic faith. John meets a God desperately in love with him and all of humankind. We are blessed with John’s insights that come out of deep revelation in a life of darkness and desolation. So, too we are blessed with the salvation sacrifice of another 3 John – the Baptist, who knew the real Messiah in prison whose way he was preparing – all while waiting his beheading at the hand of King Herod. From the life of the apostle Paul, we learn of God’s grace through thirty plus desperate years of ministry. His transformational messages that are the bedrock of the Christian faith came through days of torture, hardship, persecution, ship-wreck, imprisonment, hunger, homeless, and abandonment and near death. The same for Job – the most faithful man on the earth, came to know God through a desperate time – years of desolation, destruction and death. Everything he owns is taken away, even his children are killed and his pious friends provide foolish consolation seeking to rationalise his suffering instead of discerning God’s purpose. Job perseveres in his faithfulness towards God and discovers that God is also faithful and majestic in his wisdom and lavish providence. He learned of God’s graciousness on a bed of ashes, wearing sack cloth and covered with blistering boils. So too King David, on the run, hiding in caves, desperate to be saved from his enemy King Saul. We are blessed with the Psalms, written through days and nights of intense despair, depression and anxiety. Yet through this time, David’s desire for God intensifies as his enemies are slowly vanquished and he enjoys the blessing of a personal God – whose seed is Christ the Messiah. Desperation is the hallmark of Jesus’ life, epitomised on the cruel cross. It’s not only the physical suffering that moves us but knowing that his act of sacrifice was in full and complete obedience to His Father’s will. He so desired that we enjoy fellowship with God the Father – as He was enjoying in the Trinity, that he was willing to take the sin of the world on himself. In so doing through his life and ministry on earth and eventually on the Christ, he went through his desperately ‘dark night’ where he cried to His Father, ‘why have you forsaken me’. We cannot fully appreciate this cry of Jesus, until we get into the desperate places of our own lives. It is then that we recognise the deep anguish of the cry of the Son to His Father. At that same moment, the all-loving Father looks away – allowing his son to 4 faithfully complete the work of salvation. “For God, so loved the world, he gave us his only son” Jesus knows human desperation, not because he is all-knowing, but because he was in the same place as we are and will be. We who are called as his disciples are likewise called to bear the cross, to die with Him and be resurrected in his glory. The joy of resurrection comes after the desperation of death. The cross prepares us for this reality in our spiritual journey. Desperation is a good place – because God is there. The Gospels are full of stories of desperate people. We read of the Canaanite woman pleading for the deliverance of her daughter (Matt 15 v 22-28). Jairus, ruler of the synagogue frantically pleads with Jesus to heal his dying daughter (Luke 8 v 41-42, 49- 56). Blind Bartimaeus would not be silenced by the crowds as he shouts out to Jesus (Mark 10 v 46-52). The man sick of the palsy has his friends dismantle the roof to lower him into Jesus presence (Mark 2 v 1-5). Perhaps one of the most moving stories concerns the woman with the issue of blood (heavy menstrual bleeding). This is a wonderful story of desperation and how God moves in rhythm to our desire for Him. A story of holistic healing: "There was a woman who for twelve years had suffered from a haemorrhage. She had undergone many different types of treatments at the hands of many doctors. She had spent her last penny trying to find a cure. It had done her no good at all. Indeed her trouble grew worse and worse. She had heard the stories about Jesus. She came up behind Him in the crowd and touched His cloak, for she said to herself: 'If I touch even His clothes, I will be cured.' There and then her flow of blood was stopped, and she felt in her body that she was cured of the trouble which had been her scourge for so long. Jesus was aware that His power had gone out of Him. Immediately He swung around in the crowd. 'Who touched my clothes?' He asked. 5 The disciples said to Him: 'Don't you see the crowd jostling you on every side? What's the sense of asking who touched you?' But Jesus continued to search the crowd with His eyes to discover who had done it. The woman was so scared that she was still shaking. She knew what had happened to her. So she came and threw herself at Jesus’ feet, and told Him the whole truth. 'Daughter,' He said, 'your faith has cured you. Go and God bless you! Go and enjoy your new health, free from the trouble that was your scourge.’ " “The Women with the Issue of Blood” Mark 5:25-34, Translation of the New Testament by William Barclay. This is such a powerful story. It captures a life-changing experience of a simple woman that dared to reach out to a Rabbi, who was, in truth the Son of God. This woman’s need for physical healing out of deep desperation was the platform for a whole change in her body, mind, soul and extending to her community. She touched Jesus’ garment for her immediate need of physical healing believing as was the social tradition of her time, that a rabbi’s garment had healing power. The touch of this Rabbi brought her much more than she could imagine for. She was invited through the response of the Rabbi – Jesus, to come into the Kingdom of God as his beloved disciple, no longer to be a despised woman. How did this transformation happen in the life of this woman and likewise how does God deal with us, in our places of deep desperation? Using this story as a central point we can learn valuable lessons from this woman’s initiative to reach out to Christ's and through His loving response towards her. Imagine with me that you are in the crowd with Jesus on the day this woman was healed. As we put ourselves into this woman’s social context, we learn that her encounter was truly remarkable as a reflection of the desperation of human beings. She experienced a journey from a place of desperation to personal destiny.