Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - What Are You Desperate For? | The Gospels | Mark 5:21–34

Episode Date: January 20, 2026

What are you desperate for God to do in your life? Is there something you’ve accepted because you think it can’t change? What would it look like to place your desperation in Jesus’s hands? In today’s episode, Tanya shares how Mark 5:21–34 shows that Jesus meets us in our desperation and invites us into healing, restoration, and peace. Read the Bible with us in 2026! This year, we’re exploring the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Download your reading plan now. Want to learn even more about the Gospels? Tune into Not Just Sunday. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Mark 5:21-34

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Tanya Wilmeth. In the Bible, we encounter a lot of people who are desperate. In the Old Testament, we meet Hagar. And in Genesis 21, Abraham sends Hagar away into the desert with her young son, where she runs completely out of water. Hagar is so desperate that she leaves Ishmael under a bush and walks away,

thinking to herself that she cannot watch him die. Then she sits. and begins to sob, knowing there is nowhere to get water to save herself and her son. But when she has no hope left, God hears her crying and the angel of God calls down to her, telling her not to be afraid. He is going to make that son that she thinks is about to die into a great nation. What must she have thought? That sounds great, but what about water, Lord? But then her eyes are opened and she sees a well of water, and she goes to it, filling her skin with water for herself and her son.

Okay, what about First King 17? There's another mother. She's a widow living in the middle of a famine, and she is about to prepare a final meal for herself and her son before they starve to death. She's using the very last of the flour and the oil, and while she's out gathering sticks to build the little cooking fire, Elijah approaches her house,

and he tells her to make a small loaf for him and another for herself and her son. Can you imagine how she must have skimped for each meal, knowing the last would eventually come? And now she's asked to divide this with a stranger. Even though Elijah promised she would not run out of flour and oil, how would she know for sure? She makes a small look for Elijah and another for her little family. And as promised, the flour is not used up and the jar of oil does not go dry.

And it's not just moms. King David knew desperation well. He spent years running for his life. He was hunted by Saul, later betrayed by his own son, Absalom, in caves and in And guilt, David cried out to God to save his life, to pull him up from the pit, and even to forgive him with his sin with Beshiba when that led to the death of her husband or when he had her husband killed. David's desperation became many of the prayers that we know and cling to in the Psalms. What are you desperate for? What are you longing for God to do in your life and in your heart?

Let's stop and pray. Lord Jesus, in some way all of us are desperate. for you to intervene in some attitude, in some situation, in some sin, it's something. We all are desperate. We carry the weight of the world on our shoulders. But right now we bring to you, our addictions, our suffering, our pain, our unnamed thing that we no longer want or can no longer bear. And we ask for you to hear us and be powerful in this for us and with us. Amen. In today's passage, Mark chapter 5, verses 21 to 34, we find two people from very different situations that are desperate. One is a man from the upper class.

He's a synagogue leader, a sort of layman, with religious responsibilities that are both important and reserved for those with standing in the community. Now, the other one is completely different. This is a woman that's been cast out of respectable society, especially religious society. I'm going to tell you why. Her condition is so severe that no doctor has been able to help her, and because she is bleeding, she's declared ritually unclean, so she cannot touch anyone without making them unclean as well. That means no normal relationships. Imagine no shared meals, no hugs, and most devastating of all, no participation in corporate worship. She is exactly the kind of person that synagogue leader I mentioned earlier would have been trained to keep at a distance

for the sake of protecting the people in the temple. She is exhausted every medical option. She spent every dollar that she had. Now she's not only isolated, but she's destitute. Okay, so those are our two people that we encounter in this passage. Now, having just crossed back over the lake, Jesus is again greeted by crowds, really just throngs of people who want something from him.

As he makes his way, the first man, Jairus, the synagogue leader comes toward him. And the passage says this important man fell at Jesus' feet pleading for Jesus to come with him because his little girl is at the end of her life. She's literally on death's door. The man simply asked that Jesus come and put his hands on her so that she will be healed. And Jesus does. He begins to go with Gyrus.

Now seemingly as he is following or walking along with Gyrus, the woman who's been bleeding for 12 years makes it close in the woman. enough to Jesus to touch his cloak because she believed she would be healed just by touching him. And when she touches his cloak, she must have been trying not to make a scene. Her bleeding stops immediately. And she is able to feel that something has happened. She is able to recognize that she has been healed. But Jesus also feels what has happened.

And he stops and asks, who touched me? Now the disciples think this is crazy. Jesus, how can you possibly know in this crowd of people who touched your cloak and why does it even matter? But Jesus kept looking for the one that touched him. And the woman, who had only wanted to touch him and stay hidden, finds the courage to come and fall at his feet. And though she's trembling, she tells him the whole truth about what just happened. And Jesus said to her, daughter, your faith has healed you. go in peace and be free from your suffering.

Today's passage teaches God's people that Jesus wants us to know and experience his power to save us from our suffering. How do we know this? Well, by watching and listening to Jesus, seeing Him selflessly follow the will of His Father in this passage, not only do we see the heart of Jesus, but we see our Heavenly Father through Him and experience His vast love for us. In this passage, there are three things we can remember when we feel desperate. One, you do not have to wait to come to Jesus.

The woman had been bleeding for 12 years, and she tried everything for relief, doctors, remedies, probably even superstitions. But as soon as she heard about Jesus, she went to touch him. She didn't wait her turn and she didn't listen to the rules of society. What do you think she felt when Jesus stopped to look for her? She must have been so scared about being called out. out. But the intentionality of Jesus to turn toward her shows that the synagogue leader was not more important or more worthy or more prepared. The only qualification on that day was desperation.

Number two. Jesus knows you and understands your suffering. He is not a genie lamp. He is God made flesh who experienced our suffering so we can follow in his footsteps to the father. In the midst of a crowd with many people competing for his attention, Jesus stopped. Jesus asked who had touched him, and Jesus publicly pronounced that she was healed, so she would know she was truly healed and truly restored. He asked so his disciples and all of us might know him more deeply, a Savior who came to rescue us from our sin and suffering. Number three.

The more release into Jesus' hands, the greater freedom and peace we will have. Jesus didn't tell the woman her touch had made her well or his garments had made her well. It was her faith that made her well. It took courage for her to even come to Jesus. She'd been an outcast for 12 years. For this time and place, she was considered incurable. Is there something you are accepting? Because you think it's part of who you are?

That you can't stop? That you can't change? Let's look at what Jesus did in this passage. He heard Gyrus in his plea for help. He felt the woman's touch and stopped, even though he didn't have time on this day from a human perspective. He ignored the disciples' irritation and looked around to find the woman who had touched him. He was not looking for an answer.

He was calling on the person who touched him so she could come forward and confess. Will you let God's word penetrate your heart, the way Jesus' question touched this woman? Mark 5 reminds us that, Jesus welcomes our desperation. So bring what you've been caring. Reach out in faith and trust that Jesus who stopped in the crowd is calling you by name and inviting you into healing, restoration, and peace.