7:28
The woman then refers to Jesus as Lord, and gives a very clever answer. “Even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs”. First, she is not to be deterred. This is something that all of us should take hold of. Elsewhere Jesus commended persistent prayer, even cheeky prayer. Jacob wrestled with the angel of the Lord. God likes persistence! Then she knows that what she is asking for, while it is obviously big in terms of her life, in terms of all that Jesus can do is just one more miracle. In that sense it is no big deal!
7:29,30
Jesus approves of her reply. Sometimes prayer is an interaction with God. We sometimes say that prayer is not a matter of persuading God or changing His mind, but more a matter of Him changing our minds, and to a large extent this is true, and it is vital that we do not view prayer as a slot machine. However, sometimes prayer is wrestling with God, and from a human perspective it might seem as if we have indeed “changed God’s mind”. If we could view it from an eternal perspective this won’t be what happened, but from our limited perspective this will be how it seems. We need to appreciate the limitations of seeking to interpret eternal matters from our limited temporal perspective. If we do not do this then prayer, or any other aspects of the Christian life, can become very sterile and stale. Prayer is an interaction between God and man, and sometimes that interaction can take a most irreligious form.
So Jesus told her that the demon had left her child, and when she went home she found that it was so.
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