According to His Will

"Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is cruelly demon possessed."  Here Jesus responds that He was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.  "Lord, help me!" is the Canaanite woman's cry.  Jesus then responds with, "It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." 

Israelites are sheep and Canaanites are dogs.  We tend to look at this as a put down, but it was a simple differentiation.  The woman was a foreigner and wouldn't understand everything Jesus was here to do.  At least the Israelites would think so.  Of course, they didn't really understand what He was doing either, they just thought they did.  Jesus had actually come for the entire world, but Israel tended to think the Messiah was for them alone.  Here Jesus took an opportunity, as always, to teach His real purpose, to save the world. 

"Yes, Lord, but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their master's table."

Her request is granted willingly, "Your faith is great," she is told by Jesus.  Rather than take offense at anything Jesus said, she agreed with Him.  Jesus says, "You're just a dog."  She says, in essence, "Yes, I am.  Even so, I need You."

This is what Jesus wants of us.  He wants us to agree with Him so we can be in a receptive place.  Before salvation He says to us, You are but a sinner."  Our response hopefully goes something like this; "Yes, Lord.  Even so, I need You."  It is in recognizing our sinful state that we are able to receive forgiveness.

The same thing occurs in a Christian's prayer life.  God tells us in His word what we need:  Then He says, ¹⁴ This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. ¹⁵ And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.  I John 5

There are no shortcuts to knowing God's will.  If we really want to know it, we have to get to know Him.  It's as simple and as difficult as that.  Simple, because if we really want to know Him, He will let us.  Difficult because the better we know Him, the more we recognize the things wrong in our lives.   The time equation makes things difficult for most too.  We live in such a fast paced, shortcut world that spending time alone with God seems a monumental task. 
Rather than allowing this to discourage us, we should use it to grow in our walk of faith.The more I learn of God, the more I learn about myself.  I have discovered that I am many things that are dishonorable at times. I have been called prideful, arrogant, gossip, fearful, haughty, boastful and many other things by my heavenly Father.  He speaks to me as Jesus did to the Canaanite woman, gently and out of love, but each time I have had to agree with the assigned name in order to be set free of it in the given circumstance.  Do I still have problems with any of them?  Yes - all of them at one time or another, but I have learned that the faster I agree with the Father when He speaks to my heart regarding it, the faster I am freed, able to forgive and filled with joy once again.   
³ Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; ⁴ perseverance, character; and character, hope. ⁵ And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.  Romans 5