When You’ve Prayed for Years and Nothing’s Changed

You’ve prayed and prayed, and nothing has shifted. You’re not the only one.

About this episode

This week on Crowd Church, guest preacher Mark Buchannan walks us through Mark 5 and the woman who’d been bleeding for twelve years — broke, exhausted, ceremonially unclean, and shut out of community. She’d tried everything. She had every reason to give up. Instead, she pushed through the crowd to touch the corner of Jesus’ cloak.

It’s part three of our series Jesus the Revolutionary, and the conversation that follows on Conversation Street goes somewhere honest. Sharon, Dave, and Mark sit with the question most polished sermons skip — what about the people who’ve been praying for years and haven’t seen the answer yet?

Timestamps

1. 00:00 Welcome and intro
2. 02:30 Mark’s talk begins — Bumping into Jesus is not enough
3. 04:00 Twelve years of bleeding, broke, and rejected
4. 07:30 The risk of being in the crowd at all
5. 10:00 The tassel, the wings, and Hark the Herald Angels
6. 13:30 Faith plus action — why she had to reach out
7. 16:00 The only woman Jesus ever called daughter
8. 18:30 Go in peace — not just healing, but shalom
9. 21:00 What this means for the rest of us
10. 25:00 Conversation Street begins
11. 26:30 Sharon’s question — have you ever had to push through?
12. 27:30 Dave’s Brecon Beacons story — broken in body, healed overnight
13. 31:00 Mark on his divorce, Graham Kendrick, and the Empire State Building
14. 36:00 Ellis asks — how do you actually push through?
15. 41:00 The hardest question — what about people who’ve prayed for years and nothing’s happened?
16. 43:00 Dave’s chronic illness — I haven’t been healed yet
17. 46:00 Mark on his mum, MS, and the woman in the wheelchair next to her
18. 48:00 Sharon’s instrument-flying image — when you can’t feel anything, fly by the word
19. 49:30 Mark’s closing — Jesus doesn’t have a VIP list
20. 50:30 Zoe’s comment — this gives me hope

Key references

1. Mark 5:21-43 — Jairus’s daughter and the woman with the bleeding (also in Matthew and Luke; Mark gives the most detail)
2. Numbers 15:38-39 — the tassels (tzitzit) on the corner of the prayer shawl
3. Malachi 4:2 — the Son of Righteousness will rise with healing in his wings
4. James 2 — faith without works is dead
5. Mark 10:46-52 — Bartimaeus and what do you want me to do for you?
6. Daniel 3 — even if he doesn’t, yet will we praise him
7. Hark! The Herald Angels Sing — risen with healing in his wings
8. Derek Prince — proclamations (mentioned by Mark as a way to put God’s word in your mouth when you’re desperate)

Quotes from the talk“Bumping into Jesus is not enough.” — Mark Buchannan“It’s not just an instantaneous healing. He’s saying, from now on, you’re going to live in my shalom.” — Mark Buchannan“He may not have healed you yet, but he’s not abandoned you.” — Dave“Jesus doesn’t have a VIP list.” — Mark BuchannanConversation Street — what came up

The Q&A this week sat with the hardest version of the question. Sharon kept pushing past the easy answers, and Mark and Dave didn’t dodge.

1. Dave told the story of falling in the Brecon Beacons in his thirties, being helicoptered off the mountain, and being told he wouldn’t walk normally. The church elders broke into his house to pray. He woke up the next morning completely healed.
2. Mark went somewhere quieter — the period around his divorce when his daughters were moving to another country. Praying with Graham Kendrick, who suddenly prayed in tongues with unusual force about God’s protection over his relationship with his girls. Thirteen years later, on the top of the Empire State Building with one of his now-grown daughters, Mark realised they’d made it.
3. Ellis asked the practical question live — how do you push through? Mark’s answer was to use what we have, and to put the right words in our mouths — thanksgiving, scripture, proclamation. Dave’s was to camp in what God’s word actually says, and not to walk it alone. Sharon shared her own — sometimes pushing through is physically moving, like she did when God led her to Liverpool.
4. Alicia added that for her, pushing through means praying first instead of panicking first.
5. Matthew noted that in Eastern Orthodox tradition the woman is named Fotina — the luminous one — though that comes from church tradition, not the text itself.

Then Sharon asked the question that had been sitting in the room. What about people who’ve been praying for years and haven’t got the answer?

1. Dave went first. He has an ongoing illness. Hasn’t been healed yet. Nobody wants to be healed more than me. But I trust him. He talked about the moment he was angry with God for months — and what he heard back in his inner being — Dave, you’ve never healed anybody. It’s me who does the healing.
2. Mark told the story of his mum, who lived with MS for as long as he could remember. She was at Spring Harvest sat next to a woman in a wheelchair who was healed and walked out of the big top holding her chair. His mum was not. To the day she died, she was adamant God is a God who heals. The response, Mark said, isn’t to heap guilt on the person who hasn’t been healed — it’s to keep positioning ourselves toward the Jesus who is the healer.
3. Sharon offered her own image — when emotions can’t grasp anything, fly by the instruments. The instruments are the word of God.
4. Mark closed with the line that landed loudest. Jesus doesn’t have a VIP list. The synagogue ruler with social standing and the unnamed woman with none get exactly what they need from the same Jesus.

A community member named Zoe (not the Zoe doing the tech) added a comment near the close — I’ve had a debilitating illness for 5 years but only just come to God. I’ve prayed for healing but not received it yet. This conversation is good to hear and continues to give me hope.

That’s the whole point of Conversation Street. Real questions, honest answers, and hope that hasn’t been polished into something less true.

Links

1. Watch the full service and join the conversation at crowd.church
2. Catch up on the rest of the Jesus the Revolutionary series at crowd.church/talks

Crowd Church — a community for those who might not see the point of church.