In Saint Luke's Gospel, chapter 13, verses 10 to 17, Jesus visit a synagogue on the Sabbath to teach. As usual, Jesus gave his lesson in word and deed.
"A woman was there who for eighteen years had been crippled by a spirit; she was bent over, completely incapable of standing erect" (v.11).
Jesus declared that the crippled woman’s condition to be the work of Satan. Afterall, the physician Luke stated that the woman “had a spirit of infirmity.” Such spirits are not from God. This spirit was such that she was unable to look up; hunched over, she could only look down.
When Jesus laid hands upon her and straightened her, she looked God in the face and gave Him praise!
However, since this miracle took place in a synagogue on the Sabbath, the officials told the people to come any other day to be healed. Yet the unnamed woman did not ask Jesus – He just healed her!
Why didn’t she ask Jesus to cure her? Is it possible that she had not heard of Jesus? Did she not know of the power of God?
Perhaps, after 18 years, she had given up hope. In her crippled position, she just bent over even more and wallowed in her suffering.
Satan can use sickness to bring us down. A spirit of infirmity causes us not to look to God, but only at ourselves. Then, a person might define herself by her disability, not by her dignity.
She may even blame God for the illness. That is the evil work of a spirit of infirmity.
We are not bound by such spirits. Because Jesus took on our infirmities, we can praise Him even in our sickness. Our illnesses can actually help to build up the kingdom of God. We can unite our sufferings with Jesus’ and participate in His saving work.
Jesus performed a wondrous miracle for the crippled woman that Sabbath day, but the bigger, more wonderful miracle is the one He works through our infirmities, big and small, every day.
Is there some suffering that you can offer up to God today?