He Said I Am Willing

Called to Follow | Monday Reflection | Week 3

"Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. 'I am willing,' he said. 'Be clean!' Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed." — Mark 1:41–42

Sunday you heard about a leper who came to Jesus with a question underneath his question. He did not say heal me. He said if you are willing. He already believed Jesus could. What he was not sure about was whether Jesus would. Whether someone like him was worth the trouble. Whether the brokenness he was carrying was the kind Jesus actually wanted to touch.
Jesus answered the question he was really asking.

I am willing.

Most of us are carrying something we have not brought to Jesus because we are not sure He wants to deal with it. Not the presentable things. The other things. The ones we have had too long and tried too hard to fix and failed too many times to feel like they are worth bringing again. We have made a quiet decision that this particular brokenness is ours to manage and His to overlook.

But the leper did not manage his leprosy into something more presentable before he came. He came as he was. Unclean. Disqualified by every social and religious standard of his day. And Jesus reached out and touched him before He said a word.

The touch came before the healing. He was not clean when Jesus reached for him.

This week, bring the thing you have been managing. Not the version of it you are less embarrassed about. The actual thing. He already knows what it is. And the answer He gave the leper is the same one He has for you.

I am willing.