Matthew 15 vs. 26
And answering He said, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and to cast it to the dogs.” (Berean Literal Bible)
Many of those who lived in the Middle East of this woman’s day thought very low of dogs, believing them so impure that their presence could render your prayers void. In those days, dogs were used to purge rats from the city; they also acted as garbage disposals, keeping the city clean from all kinds of waste and unwanted things.
While dogs served a clear purpose in those days, they were not viewed with the warmth and admiration of our times. Instead, there was no affection between a master and his dog.
You can imagine, being called a dog by the very one from whom you seek healing is not what you might want to hear. Often when we pray, we believe there is some impurity about us that will keep our prayers from being answered. Had the woman allowed her personal feelings about who she was to get in the way of her seeking God for healing, she would have never received that which she wanted. Instead, she was honest with God. She acknowledges the filth in her life and how undeserving she was of what she requested.
When we or someone we love is sick, there is no time to get things right, no time to do things differently. We can’t relive our lives so that we might change things in the hopes of receiving our request. What she needed was an instant and immediate answer, and though there was absolutely nothing she could do to become deserving of the healing, she still sought out God. She was granted her request not because she was good, but because God is. Yes, often the dogs get what is left from the table, but all the ingredients that are in the loaf of bread that the children enjoyed at the table, are also in the crumbs that fall from the table. Thus, what remained was enough to bring the healing that she sought for her child.
