And why not?

Here’s a thing, there’s a woman in Mark 5 who has been bleeding for twelve years, and we don’t know her name. What got preserved for two thousand years of church history is her medical condition. We call her the Woman with the Issue of Blood. Not her personality, not her family. Just the thing that was wrong with her. Mark is in such a rush with his gospel he didn’t pause to find out, “what’s her name?”

Which is both unfortunate and completely relatable.

Most of us are carrying a label we didn’t choose. It happens. Some were handed to us by people who should have known better. Some we’ve worn so long we’ve stopped questioning whether they’re even accurate (I work with someone called Bruce, but it turns out that his name is Adrian. No one knows how he got to be called by that name, it just happened.) Anxious. Broken. Too much. Not enough. The one who failed. After a while, you stop noticing the label.

This woman knew the weight of it. Twelve years of it. Unclean by religious law. Untouchable. Excluded from temple, community, normal life. She’d spent everything on doctors and got worse for the trouble. Fingers point, ‘is that?’

Then she hears Jesus is nearby.

Let’s be honest about the awkwardness. Pharisees are watching like rabid Rottweilers; this woman is technically not supposed to be in that crowd, and there’s another crisis happening. Jairus, a man of standing, has a dying daughter and like a paramedic, Jesus is already on his way. Jairus also has a label. The story has somewhere to be. Blues and two’s all the way.

She comes anyway. Presses through. Reaches for the hem of his garment. Not even the man himself. Just the outermost edge of his cloak. That’s all that matters, ‘if I can just touch…’

Cue the music; the moment she does, everything changes.

This is top Netflix stuff; instantly Jesus stops and asks who touched him – specifically, ‘who?’ The disciples think the sun has got to Him, he’s lost the plot. But he felt power go out from him. He was paying attention in a way nobody else in that crowd was capable of. That’s one to think about …

She comes forward trembling and tells him everything. The thing she doesn’t mention at dinner. The thing she’s learned to work around in conversation. And Jesus calls her daughter.

Not healed woman. Not formerly unclean woman. Daughter. A word that replaces a label with a relationship.

She came in defined by what was wrong with her. She left defined by who she belonged to. And it happened through one desperate, slightly rule-breaking reach toward Jesus in a crowd.

If you’re watching this story from the outside, there’s a moment where you stop seeing a first century, very desperate, needy woman and start seeing something uncomfortably familiar.

As you do so, recognise that whatever the life-label is, whatever makes you feel like you’re not quite supposed to be in the crowd, watch her press through. Watch her reach. Watch Jesus stop. No imposter syndrome. She belongs.

So here you are – ask yourself what’s stopping you from doing the same thing. Reach out and touch as you pray, worship, follow and obey.

Don’t hold back… honestly.

There’s probably a few a moments in your life when you look back in retrospect and know things could have worked out better, if you had put just a little, tiny more effort into it… #tshirt

King Joash did. And he didn’t. And it cost him more than he would realise.

Over in 2 Kings 13, the double-anointed Elisha, successor of Elijah is dying. Joash reads the room and comes to him weeping, calling him “the chariots of Israel and its horsemen.” An odd title, but Joash knows what’s at stake. He knows who this aging, sick man is, and genuinely grieves. Elisha, even in his final days, responds, giving the king something extraordinary: a prophetic act, a moment loaded with meaning and potential. It’s a moment of encounter.

The drama unfolds before us as we read. Take the bow. Draw it, pull it back, back, back, hold it. Steady, steady… Elisha puts his bony hands over the king’s hands, and engages with the moment before urging him, “take the arrows and strike the ground.”

Joash strikes it three times. Then stops. #awkward #clumsy #embarrased

Elisha is furious. This probably nearly polished him off, “You should have struck five or six times; then you would have struck down Syria until you had made an end of it, but now you will strike down Syria only three times.”

Three times. Not because God limited him. Because he limited himself.

Here’s the thing. Joash wasn’t apathetic. He showed up. He wept. He engaged. But when the moment came for full-on, wholehearted pursuit, he held back. And nobody told him to. That restraint came from within.

What this really means is that the ceiling on Joash’s victory wasn’t Syria’s strength. It was his own halfheartedness in a brutally defining moment.

Leaders, this is worth sitting with. Many of you are in a ‘Joash moment’ right now. You’ve shown up. You’re engaged. You’re not walking away. But somewhere in you, there’s a hesitation. A measured response to an unmeasured calling. You’re striking the ground a mere three timeswhen you should be exhausting yourself doing it. God offends the mind to reveal the heart. This is such a moment.

The question isn’t whether God is able. It never was. The question is whether you will give the moment what it actually demands. Yourself. #wholehearted

Elisha’s hands were over Joash’s hands. The Spirit of God was present and active. The victory was already seeded into the act. All it needed was a king who refused to stop.

You are that king. Don’t put the arrows down. Don’t.

Believe, and expect more. Much more.

Aslan is on the move.