It's time for some encouragement for you from Our Daily Bread.

The devotional for today title Dilemas and Deeper Faith was written by Arthur Jackson.

During a Saturday morning Bible study, a father was perplexed because his beloved wayward daughter had returned to the city, but he was uncomfortable with her in his home because of her behavior.

Another attendee was not well in her body because the physical effects of long-term disease and

aging had taken their toll. Numerous visits to numerous doctors had yielded minimal progress.

She was discouraged. By divine design, Mark Chapter 5 was the Bible passage they studied that day, and when the study was

over, hope and joy were palpable. In Mark 523, Jairus, a father with a sick child, exclaimed,

My little daughter is dying. On his way to visit the girl, Jesus healed an unnamed woman of her

long-term health issue saying, daughter, your faith has healed you. Jiris and the woman, compelled by

faith in Jesus, sought him out and they weren't disappointed. But in both cases,

prior to meeting Jesus, things had progressed from bad to worse before getting better.

Life's dilemmas don't discriminate. Regardless of gender or age, race, or class,

we all face situations that perplex us and send us searching for answers.

Rather than allowing challenges to keep us from Jesus,

let's strive to have them stir us to deeper faith than the one who feels it when we touch him, and who can make us well.

Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading comes from the Gospel of Mark,

chapter 5, verses 21 through 34. When Jesus had again crossed over a by boat to the other side of the lake,

a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the lake. Then one of the synagogue leaders,

named Jairus, came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet. He pleaded earnestly with him. My little daughter is dying.

Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live. So Jesus went with him.

A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for 12 years.

She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had.

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