Genesis 2:18-25 / Mark 7:24-30
There are two words that can sound rather depressive and discouraging at times. Those two words are NO and END.
Putting it into a sentence, we can say that a NO puts an END to further requests and shuts the door for good ... almost.
But the word END can also be an acronym for Effort Never Dies and NO can also be an acronym for Next Opportunity.
The gospel passage of today initially seems to be rather depressive and discouraging. It may also seem to make Jesus look rather cold as He snubbed the Syrophoenician woman who came to Him and fell at His feet to beg Him to cast out the devil out of her daughter.
Of course, in the end, all ended well as Jesus granted her request and He even cast out the devil just by the power of His Word.
But there are many spiritual lessons that we can learn from here, and especially from the Syrophoenician woman.
One of which is that a NO from Jesus did not put an END to her hopes or discouraged her from making another effort with her request.
For that woman, NO means Next Opportunity and END means Effort Never Dies. In other words she never gave up on Jesus and she remained positive despite the initial rejection.
May we learn this lesson from this Syrophoenician woman and have faith in Jesus because there is NO END to His love for us.