The Branch.

I've borrowed an analogy from Tim Keller, who I believe borrowed it from someone else.  The thought is of a Branch that is perched on the edge of a cliff.  The situation is our fall from that cliff.  The concept is of Faith.  Our fall from that cliff, whatever metaphorical fall it may be, produces a desperation.  The desperate have an amazing capacity for Faith, especially when all other options are taken away.  God's pursuit of his people is a mysterious gift.  The pursuit, however, can feel like a chase by the Hound of Heaven, and indeed chase us right off the cliff into despair, into desperation.  If we are unable to stop and receive the pursuer, he will present another option.  It is the branch.  Falling from the cliff to our death, the branch need not be sturdy for us to trust it.  In the fall we have not the capacity or luxury of evaluating the branch before us.  There is mercy in it being our only option.  The only thing the branch needs to be is near, for us to reach out for it.  No matter the process of arriving at faith, whether it be strength or weakness, no matter what size or conviction of our faith, it does not matter.  Indeed, we only need a mustard seed of desperate faith to save, because it is not the faith that really saves, it is the object of faith that saves.  It may take wild circumstances for me to reach out for that branch, hoping in faith to be saved, but ultimately it is the goodness of the branch itself that saves.  This root in Abraham, this branch of Jesse, the one true vine in Christ Jesus.

In the story of the Bleeding Woman in Luke 8.42 we learn about the woman who tried for years to be healed.  "43 And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years,[a]but no one could heal her."
She had reached desperation.  And truly for this "unclean" woman to reach out and touch a rabbi is evidence of her desperation. But she also had faith.  It was only when she put that faith in action to the one that deserved that faith that she was healed.  She trusted fully in Jesus, without really being aware.  And her faith was rewarded.  What is more amazing is not the healing, but that Jesus then identified her.  She was hoping to remain unnoticed.  But Jesus made sure that she knew that he knew and now she not only had healing, but she had a savior.

We may reach out in desperate faith for the branch, hoping to be saved from our immediate circumstances.  What we get is so much more, Faith and Salvation on his glorious and eternal terms instead of our own.  All the power of the universe coming to bare on our individual hearts.