‘Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment’. (Matthew 15:28).
In all great exploits of faith, we find a mystery so profound and yet so simple, that great faith is a product of a humble act of believing, nothing complicated about it.
The secret of great faith is always the simple action that proceeds from such expression of faith.
This simplicity is so beautiful and touches the heart of Christ that many fathers in the faith have said that, of all the graces of God, faith honors Christ most.
No wonder the holy scripture went further to affirm that ‘Without faith no one can please God. Anyone who comes to God must believe that he is real and that he rewards those who truly want to find him”. (Hebrews 11:6).
Great faith starts with a helpless surrender and trust to the will of God knowing that we can do nothing small or great without His help.
We must recognize our spiritual helplessness before God regardless of Christian heritage or sinful inclination to pride knowing that only when we surrender our will to God entirely with a full assurance of trust can God begin to do mighty works in our lives.
So, the Canaanite woman left us a legacy of a yielding trust and confidence in Jesus. Therefore, it is for me to yield, and it is for God to act.
Like a driver who will listen and yield to the commands of an instructor, our responsibility is to yield our will to God for divine guidance and inspiration, and to trust that he will lead us aright.
Great faith starts and ends with the understanding of the following premise established by Christ: “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing’. John 15:5.
However, to come to the doorstep of great faith our resolve must be tested and conquered. For the Canaanite woman pressed by need and at a dire strait, her humility and perseverance are worthy of note.
To exercise great faith, we must be dead to our pride before God, we must declare our helplessness and we must press for our needs with perseverance.
What then is the secret of great faith? Like the Canaanite woman we don’t need a great spiritual pedigree to exercise great faith, we don’t need a great revelation to walk in great faith, all we need is a simple act of believing and trusting Jesus.
The Canaanite woman was celebrated by Christ not for her great understanding and revelation but for the simplicity of her belief and her perseverance in the face of Christ’s ‘rejection’- of course we know that Christ bid all to come to Him and will reject no one. She like Jacob only prevailed with perseverance.
Jacob had told the angel during his destiny changing combat: ‘I will not let thee go, until thou bless me’.
We can therefore say those who will exert great faith in Christ must come to the end of their pride and must humble themselves in the exercise of their request, in prayer and in their action.
Above all in the exercise of simplicity of faith we must belief that He who upholds the universe for eternities without failing will equally honor our faith in Him.
Reading
Mathew 15:21-28
