Jesus and the woman who was afflicted for 18 years

In this week's Bible Lesson, there is this story given in Luke 13: 11 -13. Remember, Luke was both an historian and a doctor. His accounts of healings are very thorough. He also seems to have interviewed many people and his gospel and the book of Acts contain many eye witness accounts.

Jesus was teaching in one of the synogogues on a Sabbath. There in the temple he sees a woman who had a spirit of infirmity for 18 years. She was bowed together and couldn't straighten up. He calls her to him and tells her she is freed from this infirmity, placing his hands on those bowed shoulders. She immediately straightens up and praises God.

Here are the four claims made about her; that she has the appearance of being infirm or weak and ill, that this condition has gone on for many years, that she is bent over, and that she can't help herself. Jesus does not accept any of this as the truth about her true being as a child of God. He calls her to him, unusual in itself as Jewish men did not address women in public.
She has come to the temple to pray, possibly asking God to help her, indicating that she is receptive to healing. And she gets her healing.

What do we learn from this? How can we apply it to our own experiences?

Jesus did not accept any of these claims as truth. We never have to either. We never have to see ourselves or anyone else as the victims of some debilitating situation or condition. We never have to go around with the appearance of being infirm.

Time was no problem to the Master. It does not have to intimidate us either. It does not matter how long something claims to have been going on. It's still only a lie. When you wake up from a dream the things that seemed to have happened in that dream lose their reality and fade away. You see that you were never having that experience except in the dream. The real you was untouched by that dreaming you.

What matters is the state of your thinking. How are you starting each day? Are you dragging around all the past hurts, mental and physical Do you spend your time brooding over mistakes or situations? Are you constantly looking down in acceptance and defeat? Or do you start the day praising God and claiming your rights as His own image and likeness? Pray for yourself every single day, go to whatever 'temple' or holy place in thought you identify with. Spend a few moments there to see yourself at one with divine Love and goodness.

Put God's diagnosis about you first.

Mrs. Eddy describes what Jesus was doing when confronted with false claims about man. "Christ Jesus overruled the error which would impose penalties for transgressions of the physical laws of health. He annulled supposed laws of matter, opposed to the harmonies of Spirit, lacking divine authority and having only human approval for their sanction". What a remarkable statement! To overrule is to disallow the arguements of something and to annul is to make void or invalid. Jesus disallowed what the world is saying is true and he made void or invalid any such conditions imposed on God's child. He saw God as the only cause and creator and knew that all He caused and created was good. Nothing else was present or had power.

You don't have to change the condition, you have to change what you believe about the condition. That is what he did for what he saw and he helped that woman to see it. She got her healing and you can too.