An unfamiliar knot settled in the pit of his stomach. He was out of his depth. Deeply. Issuing demands was far more familiar than making requests. It was how he lived his life, made his living. Giving commands. To soldiers. To servants. He took his job seriously. Didn’t abuse his authority. Didn’t routinely make requests to fulfill favors. Didn’t have a habit of requiring something miraculous, magnificent, or outrageous. Tried to keep his commands simple, his orders manageable. He was used to hearing “yes.” To his requests. To his orders. To his demands. Not that he didn’t know how to handle “no.” He did. He heard it often from his superior officers. But today the Roman centurion wanted to hear “yes.” Needed to hear it. His servant needed it even more.
The boy at home was young. Very young. Full of vigor and vitality. Anxious to learn. Overly helpful. He’d make a good soldier someday. If he lived. If he healed. If he ever walked again. Injured in a recent accident, the boy lay in bed, unable to move. The paralysis was widespread. The pain was unbearable. No one knew how to help him. Not because they hadn’t tried. They had. The best physician the Roman officer could find had been called to evaluate and medicate. Endlessly, he poked and prodded. They tried a handful of different things. In the end, the doctor had solemnly shaken his head. There was nothing he could do. Not with regaining the use of his limbs. Not with easing the pain. There was nothing medically that would change the outcome. If he didn’t die, the boy would live a painful, paralyzed life.
Those words had brought the centurion to this place. A public area in Capernaum, where anyone could hear him, anyone could see him, anyone could spread word of his actions. He didn’t care. Couldn’t care. He wasn’t there for himself. His servant needed a miracle, and he came to get him one. From Jesus. He’d heard the reports. He knew about the miracles. He understood the power and authority behind Jesus’ words. And he believed. He understood that, just as he had power to speak and have his men obey, Jesus had the power to speak and make healing occur. Jesus didn’t have to be there. He didn’t have to travel. He didn’t have to see the boy or lay his hands on him. No. The centurion believed Jesus had the power to heal from a distance, not because the boy had faith or even had the ability to ask, he believed Jesus would work for that boy because of his own faith. The centurion’s faith. The faith that had him bolting to Jesus, carrying in his heart the battered body of a servant boy, asking for a miracle, believing it would happen. And it did. When the boy was too ill to pray for himself, too broken to get to Jesus, the Roman officer carried him in faith to the place where healing could happen. (Matthew 8:5-13)
Jairus did a similar thing. It was an enormous gamble. As a leader in the synagogue, he risked so much by publicly placing his faith in Jesus. Respect. Social standing. His career. He stood to lose far more if he didn’t. His daughter was sick. Very sick. Dying, really. She wasn’t going to recover. They had done everything they could. Called the doctor. Gotten a second opinion. And a third. They followed every folk remedy. Tried every poultice and paste anyone suggested. Nothing helped. Nothing changed. She was still dying. The fever raged in her body. She didn’t eat. Didn’t drink. Every day she grew weaker. Less alert. Nearly comatose. Helplessly, they stood by, mourning the loss even before she took her last breath. Shattered. Heartbroken. Devastated by the premature loss of their only daughter.
Jairus spent hours beside her bed, holding her hand, vainly wishing he could lend her some of his strength. He couldn’t. He knew that. But he could lend her his faith. Such as it was. Jairus hadn’t made up his mind about Jesus yet. He was new on the scene. Jairus didn’t know much about Him. He did know He had caused quite a stir among the synagogue leaders. Most despised Him. Others rebuked, refused, or resented Him. Jairus hadn’t made a choice about Him. Not yet. He couldn’t reconcile the dangerous picture his colleagues painted with the things he’d heard from the crowds. Stories of faithful teaching and honest living. Stories of healing the sick and giving sight to the blind. The two sides didn’t mesh for Jairus. But the last part resonated. The healing part. The part where faith in Jesus was healing sick people. Hopelessly sick people. People who were unlikely to ever rise from their beds again. People like his daughter.
Placing her hand on the bed beside her, Jairus decisively stood. He should try it. Try Jesus. He had tried everything else. The answer couldn’t possibly be more painful. It seemed like a long shot, but so was everything else they had done. The difference was that everyone who came to Jesus for healing got it. Their requests were heard and answered. No one had been denied. No one had presented a challenge Jesus could not handle. The only requirement was faith. His daughter wasn’t in a position to exhibit faith, so the onus was on him. His belief was timid and tentative, more hope that He would, based on faith that He could rather than straight up trust. He hoped it was enough. It was all he had. And he was running out of time.
Somewhere between the darkness of his daughter’s bedside and the crowd surrounding Jesus, Jairus’ faith grew to epic proportions. Not faith for himself. Faith for his daughter. Faith that God wasn’t done with her. Faith that Jesus could and would heal her. He just had to get Him there. To his daughter. To her bedside. He needed Jesus to see her, touch her, heal her. Pushing through the crowd, Jairus dropped to his knees and bowed low to the ground before Jesus. His face was buried in his hands. His tears unashamedly flowed. His words, once they could be deciphered, begged Jesus to come heal his dying daughter. And Jesus immediately set out to go there.
Barely had they taken a few steps when He stopped. Someone had touched Him. He knew it happened. He didn’t know who. Jairus could have screamed at the delay. There were hundreds of people thronging the area. Pushing. Bumping. Jostling. Of course someone touched Jesus! Maybe on purpose. Maybe not. It didn’t matter to Jairus. His daughter was sick. Dying. This full-on investigation was taking up valuable time, perhaps the last few minutes of his daughter’s life. They needed to go. Right now. Jesus needed to get to his house before it was too late. Except it already was.
In the time it had taken Jairus to travel to Jesus, find Jesus, speak to Jesus, and wait for Jesus to disentangle from the delay, his daughter had died. Jairus’ worst fears were realized. It had all been for nothing. The faith he had scraped together was wasted. Tragically heartbroken, eyes filled with tears, racking sobs lodged painfully in his chest, Jairus turned to head for home empty-handed. Hopeless. Discouraged. Distraught. His daughter was dead. It was over. Finished. Done. Except it wasn’t.
Having found His answer, Jesus turned from the crowd in time to hear the servant’s words. Looking Jairus in the eyes, He said, “Don’t worry.” Don’t be afraid. Don’t stop believing. Don’t let go of the faith that carried your daughter’s need to me. I am coming. Keep believing. She will be fine. And she was. Because when she had no ability to pray for healing, when she couldn’t believe for herself, when she was physically unable to carry herself to Jesus, the faith of her father carried her there. It saved her life. (Luke 8:40-56)
Stories of the miraculous don’t stop there. Over and over in the years of Jesus’ ministry, we read of men and women who brought their broken, their ill, their dead, their possessed to Jesus, in faith, begging for a miracle. Some carried those unable to come on their own. Some carried requests for those who couldn’t be transported. All came in faith. Not for themselves. For those who couldn’t have faith, didn’t have faith for themselves. When their friends couldn’t find it in their hearts to believe. When they couldn’t wake from their coma to put faith in Jesus. When they were unable to lift themselves from the pain long enough to place their hope in the Savior. Friends and family came alongside them and carried them in faith to Jesus. We should still be doing the same.
Some of us are. Daily carrying others to Jesus. I know. Personally. My family is blessed to have some very special friends who consider it a privilege to lift us up to Jesus every day. When they know our struggles. When they don’t. When we send specific needs. When we don’t. When they understand our dire situations. When they don’t. What they know doesn’t matter. They just keep praying. Every day. Carrying us before the throne of God, asking Him to meet whatever needs we have, fill whatever situation we are in, walk before us and make a way where there doesn’t seem to be one. They have been doing it for more than a decade. One would think they would grow tired of it, forget to do it. They don’t. Our gratitude could not be expressed in a thousand lifetimes. Their faith has carried us when ours was wavering. Their absolute trust in the love and power of God has helped us breathe and endure while we waited for the miracles to happen. Without their prayers of faith carrying us to God through all the mishaps, trials, and temptations of our lives, I have to wonder where we would be.
You see, our churches have a lot to say about our faith carrying us through hard times. We are often charged with “keeping the faith” and encouraged to tough out the hard times by “just being faithful.” And I’m not arguing with that. At all. We need to do our best to keep our faith securely resting in Jesus Christ. We need to trust Him to hold us fast when things get crazy, keep us true when temptation comes, give us hope when everything seems lost. We need to remember that no matter what happens, we can trust Jesus. But. What about when we can’t? What about when the depression is too deep, too dark, too suffocating? What about when the fear is too overwhelming, and it is all we can feel? What about when we are sick, in a coma, in surgery? What about when we are out of our minds with grief, when the last thing we can think about is keeping the faith and remaining strong? What about when we are exhausted by the tedium of life, burdened by events in our world, disheartened by prayers that remain unanswered, and our faith seems dead and useless? What, exactly, are we supposed to do then?
The answer is in every single Biblical account of anyone who brought someone to Jesus for healing and help. The Roman centurion and his servant. Jairus and his daughter. The friends who lowered the paralyzed man through the roof. All the parents of demon-possessed children. None of those people had the capacity or ability to seek out Jesus and ask for healing. They might not even have had the faith to make it happen. But the people who loved them did. They came around them, alongside them, supported them, and, one way or another, carried them to Jesus. Could you do that? Would you do that? Do you care enough to exercise your own faith to carry someone else to Jesus through the difficult moments of their lives? (Luke 7:1-10, 8:40-56; Mark 2:1-12, 9:14-29; Matthew 15:21-28)
In his letter to the Galatians, the Apostle Paul commands us to share one another’s burdens. Carry one another’s load. Grab a corner and lift. When it’s heavy. When it’s hard. Believe when they can’t. Pray when they don’t. Constantly carry them to the Father, reminding Him of their needs, believing He will answer. Until He does. (Galatians 6:2)
You may not know who around you is struggling right now, but rest assured someone is. Someone in your friend group. Someone in your church group. Someone in your family. Someone’s faith is floundering. Someone’s hope is waning. Someone is too weak, too tired, too sick to get to Jesus from where they are. They feel hopeless and helpless. Stuck in a space that is dark and growing smaller by the hour. They need you. Not just your flippant promise to pray, but your firm belief that God has the power and the desire to change their lives. Through their circumstances. From their circumstances. In their circumstances. They need you to carry them to the Father and ask for healing, help, salvation, surrender on their behalf. They need you to pray when they can only cry out in pain. They need your voice battering Heaven when the depression is too dark for them to speak. They need your faith, believing God for a miracle when it feels to them like there isn’t one left. When your friends, your family, your fellow believers can’t find the strength to put their faith in Jesus, they need to be able to lean on someone who can. Is that someone you? (I Timothy 2:1; Romans 12:12; 15:1; James 2:8; Hebrews 4:16; Colossians 4:2)
I hope it is. I hope you daily carry others to the throne of God, asking for His help, hope, and healing on their behalf. I hope you have someone who prays for you like that. Daily. Directly. We all need it. We all need someone who prioritizes prayers over us and our lives. We all need to be that person for someone else. Because we will all come to a time when the circumstances of our lives get so big, so overwhelming, so terrifying, and last so long that we lose faith. We struggle. Fearing our prayers aren’t doing any good, we wonder what the point of praying even is. That’s when we need one another to help us pray, to believe for us when we can’t manage it on our own. To carry us to God and keep us there until He works. Until we see His hand. Until the answer comes. Until our meager hope takes root again. This is why community is important. It is why our circle matters. When one falls, the rest of us should lift them up. Carry them. In faith. In prayer. To God. Every day. It is our privilege. Our honor. Our responsibility. (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10; I Thessalonians 5:11, 14; James 5:16; Hebrews 10:24; Philippians 2:4)