Identity Issues

In Mark, Chapter 5 we read a story about a woman. We don’t know her actual name so she is referred to as “the woman with the issue.”

Let’s leave out the specifics. Don’t we all have issues?

Let’s just say that her problem was an internal one. Something deep inside her wouldn’t heal. She had searched for answers and tried to fix herself in so many different ways for so many years. The text says that she suffered- “many things from many.”

Doesn’t that seem to be the way? People are identified by their issues and are then valued or devalued, accordingly. Daddy issues, relationship issues, performance issues, control issues. We may feel inadequate in confidence or achievement or promotion or ability or education or skillset or status or appearance. Fill in the blank with whatever issue you want, must we be defined by them? Everyone has issues, deep wounds that bleed in their hearts.

This woman had spent all she had and was no better, only worse.

Wouldn’t you give all you had to be free from your identity issues too? Are you bankrupt from trying all your fixes? How many self-help books line your shelves? How many prescriptions are in your cabinets? How many nights have you cried and you’re still no better, only worse? Who can help you with your issue?

When the woman with the issue heard about Jesus, she came up behind Him in the crowd and touched His cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch His clothes, I will be healed.” She heard…about Jesus. I wonder what she heard? What made her willing to hope one more time? What had she heard about Jesus that made her risk everything to touch Him?

What voices have you allowed to move you? Are they cultural or generational or social? Those words are a dime a dozen. If you search for words that you want to hear, for quick fixes and magical elixirs, you will find them. But they will only keep you bleeding, stuck in your weaknesses and broke with nothing of substance left to grab onto. There is another Word to listen to. A Word that is costly, but the one that has your cure.

The woman should not have been in that crowd. According to her identity as the woman with the issue, she legally had no right to be there. She wasn’t supposed to touch anyone. But something compelled her to go beyond what she felt and what she saw in herself. Jesus had the healing for her issue and she found herself believing for the first time in a long time that there was more for her.

Who are you? Are you the person with the issue? Or are you something greater? Maybe it’s time for the issues to go and for something else to take it’s place? Maybe it’s time to break some rules and push through the crowd of your fears. Be brave! Reach out! Touch Jesus and say I will be healed!

Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. Her issue was gone. At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?” Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”

Daughter.

Did you know that she is the only person in the Bible that Jesus identifies as that? Why? Because THAT is her true identity.

What is your true identity? Let Jesus be the one to tell you. Goodbye issues. The bleeding is stopped. You are freed from your suffering. Broken is made whole. Loss is comforted. Performance is trumped by acceptance. Weakness is overtaken by strength. Anxiety is stilled by peace. Control easily gives in to surrender. Unconditional love floods the soul.

Issues are replaced with identity when you reach out and touch Jesus.