Traveling at over 11 million miles per minute, light can circle the earth 7.5 times in one second! Able to cover nearly 6 trillion miles in a year, light surely moves at a rate of speed that staggers the mind. So what is it in this world that is faster than the speed of light? The mercy of God rushing toward the heart that desperately believes. The miracle of Jesus zooming toward sincere and yielded brokenness.
Can you see it now? In your mind’s eye, can you picture the flashing glory of God’s hand setting into motion His lightning-fast mercy on its way to the point of your need? The One who spoke all the molecular structures of the universe into being with an instantaneous word, He is the one that now speaks forth His answers for our desperate lives.
The royal official of John chapter four had access to some of the money, power, and dignity the world could offer. He also had a son who was dying. A stark realization no doubt flooded his soul: “I cannot persuade death with my power, I cannot buy life with my money, and my dignity is not enough to shut the jaws of darkness.” Have we – like the royal official – ever been there? You know, in a place where we finally get it, where we finally apprehend our severe limitations.
The royal official travels some fifteen miles to get to Jesus to tell the Messiah that his son is at the point of death. No doubt having exhausted all medical possibilities and worldly privileges, the desperate man looks to the Savior. Though Jesus chastises the official at the outset for the status of his heart, the man of worldly nobility graciously accepts the rebuke of Jesus and presses forward respectfully with his need, “Jesus – Sir – please come to my town before my child dies.”
Jesus then spoke those words we long to hear, those words of life. At the very instant our Savior tells the official his son will live, the miracle falls all over the boy. The fifteen miles between Jesus and the dying child become a literal nonentity. Smashed to oblivion is the span between the point of need and the Savior of the needy.
Desperation of a broken heart. Realization of the need for Jesus. Activation of something even faster than the speed of light: the movement of God, the Maker of light, toward a heart that yields and hopes in Him.