Faith will bring the better

Mark 2:4-5 "And when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him, and when they had made an opening, they let down the bed on which the paralytic lay.  And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven."

I love these verses.  Here we see the great faith of the paralytic's friends who put forth an extreme effort to bring their friend to Jesus.  Why?  B/C they believed he would heal him.  However, we again see proof of how God's thoughts & ways are often unlike our own (Isaiah 55:8-9).  The man is lowered into the room from the roof, quite a sight to see I'm sure, and Jesus moved by his faith tells him, "Your sins have been forgiven."  In our own ignorance we like the scribes in the room think ... "He's just going to say that he forgives his sins rather than healing him?" We see later of course that Jesus knows our thoughts (how amazing) and perceives our ignorance of his ways.  So he heals the man.  Why?  To show his authority to forgive the mans sins. 

But here's what gets me.  The truth is that Jesus forgiving the man of his sins would have been far better than him ever healing his physical impairment.  The man's faith led to Jesus' forgiveness of His sins... this is a far better blessing for great faith then the latter healing.  As Mike would say... "Can we FATHOM that?"

God blesses our great faith in him to do miracles in our lives.  However, sometimes he will not do as we think he will.  Again, we must be more about loving Jesus then getting things from him.  Jesus will always honor our faith and it's up to us to trust His ways/ His responses to our faith and to know that his blessings are far better.  Our faith will bring us what God has for us.... and that's far better than what we may think.