Desperate Times Call for Desperate Faith

Don't focus so much on trauma that you miss the healer of trauma

If you want to glimpse and perhaps even experience human desperation, plan an intercontinental trip via airplane. Airports are basically display cases of human desperation—desperate mothers, desperate fathers, desperate children, desperate travelers of all ages. Where else do you find adults sleeping on dirty floors in public or people bathing with hand towels in bathroom stalls? Where else are people so completely at the mercy of the large corporations known as airlines?

I recently returned from such a journey, and I got to experience desperation firsthand. On our return from a mission trip to Rwanda, we were stuck in the Brussels airport for ten hours after our connecting flight got delayed. Due to the delay, we were going to miss our next connecting flight home from Chicago. In response to our desperate pleadings, United found us an alternative flight to a city one hour from our home. There was only one problem—we were going to have to hustle through customs in Chicago, and we couldn’t afford any more delays.

Bad news came quickly as our flight from Brussels sat on the runway for one hour as a desperate passenger received medical care after getting sick on the plane. We knew then we probably wouldn’t make it. Nonetheless, as we prepared for landing, we asked our flight attendant to let us off first. She didn’t.

When we finally got off, we ran through customs and positioned ourselves in the most strategic spot to grab our bags from the belt. Our bags were the last ones off. Undeterred, we ran to customs and turned the corner only to find a line with hundreds of people in front of us. Our plane was leaving in minutes. In one last act of desperation, I found a United worker with a walkie talkie, told him our predicament, and begged for his help. He told us to hand over our bags and run to the terminal. We did as instructed, made our flight, and our bags somehow made it, too. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

No one chooses desperation. We don’t like being out of options or having our back against the proverbial wall. Desperate people are the miserables saying “there must be something I can do” until realizing there isn’t. Desperate people no longer care about their own dignity or what others think of them. True desperation will accept help from wherever it can be found.

Whether you choose it or not, sooner or later you will find yourself in a state of desperation. Everyone does. The only question is, what will you do when you get there?

Luke 8 ends with two desperate people encountering Jesus (v. 40-56). The two stories are forever linked because one happens within the other, inviting the reader to interpret them in relationship to one another. When we do, we discover quite a contrast. On the one hand, desperate Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue, falls at Jesus’s feet and begs him to heal his dying twelve-year-old daughter. Jairus is named because he’s significant. Everyone would’ve known him. He was certainly well-respected, powerful, and rich.

But as Jesus follows Jairus home, the narrative is interrupted by an unnamed woman suffering from a bleeding condition for twelve years, the same length of time as the life of Jairus’s daughter. This woman’s hemorrhaging would have rendered her ritually unclean, cut off from the Jewish community and worship. She was also broke, for she had spent all her money on searching for a cure. In many ways, she’s the opposite of Jairus, except for one thing—she’s desperate for Jesus’s help as well.

We learn a few things about desperation from these accounts.

First, desperation doesn’t respect VIP status. It doesn’t matter how powerful you are or how much money you have or whether you sat in first class. Eventually, you, just like everyone else, will encounter desperation firsthand.

Second, Jesus helps desperate people who turn to him for help. Desperation presents a rare opportunity. While the experience of desperation is certainly unpleasant, it also removes the illusion of control and humbles us like nothing else can. Jesus commends the bleeding woman for her faith and instructs Jairus to “not fear, only believe” before raising his dead daughter back to life. Both individuals receive even more than they ask from Jesus. For both, desperation turns to joy through contact with Jesus. The lesson for us is obvious—when desperation comes, don’t waste it. Jesus will meet you there if you seek him.

Third, finding your way out of desperation requires a change of perspective. We see it in both instances, but it’s most clear with Jairus. When Jesus says, “Do not fear; only believe,” he’s inviting the grieving father to take his mind off his suffering and behold Jesus’s goodness and power instead. In our age of exploring trauma, there’s a very real danger that our hyper-focus on our pain will prevent us from seeing Jesus, the healer of our pain. It’s possible to focus so much on trauma that trauma comes to define you. It’s possible to make trauma part of your identity to such a degree that Jesus isn’t welcomed in to heal and to save. To escape desperation, make sure you see more than your desperation. Make sure you see Jesus.