Day 1:
Now, Lord, enable Your servants... (Acts 4:29)
Since they could not get [their paralyzed friend] to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on (Mark 2:4).
“I have to go to the bazaar!” It was to become a phrase etched in family lore, attached forever to the sort of “Remember the time when” moments in families.
My eldest sister, who lived with our grandparents “in town” had been “spending time” with us as she usually did over the school holidays. My second sister and I were always thrilled when she came to visit, but after a few days in our rural hideaway, my active and adventurous sister would become bored, and chafe for the animation of “town-life.”
And then there was the bazaar. She had apparently been planning for the big fair for a long time. But somehow, she ended up trapped in our village miles away from the big event she had been anticipating for so long.
In those days transportation to and from town was few and far between. The few private buses that ran the route left in the early morning hours, and even then, we would have to walk at least ten minutes to jostle for a seat along with the waiting crowd.
Afternoon travel was out of the question, but it was then that my sister began her quest to get back to town; having waited till our parents were safely out of the way. “I have to go to the bazaar!” was her matter-of-fact explanation to the protests my other sister and I raised. And nothing was going to stand in her way.
Later, some of the particulars of her quest became fodder for great amusement, including details of her appeal to Uncle Regis to take her to town on his donkey. (Uncle Regis suffered from motion sickness and had once famously traveled to town on his donkey, an incident detailed in my blog story, Donkeys and Duchesses).
For a long time, through the filters of family dynamics, I could only see the audacity and strong will in my sister’s bazaar odyssey. But eyes of greater maturity now allow me to peer more closely into a more complex mix of admirable persistence, determination, grit, and great enterprising.
Traits often commended in Scripture. In the Gospel of Mark, for instance, we are given an account of some friends, who, through sheer persistence, determination, grit and great enterprising, brought their paralyzed friend to Jesus:
A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that He had come home. They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and He preached the word to them. Some men came, bringing to Him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on. When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven…" (Mark 2:1-5).
"The Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So He said to the man, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this” (Mark 2:10:12)!
The persistence of these friends and of my sister remind me a popular commercial that asked the question “What would you do for…” And people attested to the ridiculous lengths they would go to for an icy treat.
I often feel I am challenged to decide what I would risk, how far I would go in my faith. How committed am I to pray, to bring, to reach, to go? The friends dug through a roof; my sister eventually walked forty-five minutes to the Windward Highway to hitch a ride to town.
Am I willing to forge forward with persistence, determination, grit, and great enterprising? When the obstacles stack up, and there seems to be no way, will I dare to persevere?
After a lesson about persistence, Jesus asked the question “When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth” (Luke 18:8)? The question challenges me. Will He find faith in me? How about you?
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