GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 7:30
The Look of Success
Alice and I frequently drive by a construction site. Originally, the lot was overgrown with trees, but an excavator pushed them into a pile and burned them. Then the lot was low, so a trucker hauled in several truckloads of fill dirt. One day, we went by, and saw a form for the pouring of concrete. A few days later, the concrete was in and curing. One construction event followed another until today, the house is complete and ready to become a home. The construction crew faced cold weather, some heavy rains, and intense summer heat, but they continued. That is the look of success.
Mark told of a mother whose little daughter was suffering from possession by an evil spirit. She heard that Jesus had come to town and sought him out. Mark doesn’t say how she found out about Jesus’ presence, but news of his arrival must have spread through Tyre. She came into the house where Jesus was probably reclining at a table. Ordinarily, women did not approach men in public—especially strangers. Jesus ignored her, according to Matthew’s account, and the disciples urged Jesus to send her away, but she kept asking him to cast the evil spirit out of her daughter. Jesus finally told her that the children—the Israelites—deserved the message he brought, but she would not be cast aside. When Jesus told her it was not right to take the children’s food from the table and toss it to the little dogs, perhaps little dogs in the room where he was, she understood, but said that even the little dogs get to eat the scraps that fall from the table. Jesus was so impressed by her “great faith” (Matthew 15:28) that he told her that her request was granted. “And after she departed to her home, she found the child lying on the bed, and the demon having departed.” (Mark 7:30) That is the look of success.
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