There is so much to see and admire in the faithful, penitent woman who throws herself on the mercy of Jesus. Her suffering and the suffering of her daughter have broken the illusion that she can do this on her own or that her false gods will save her. The world, with its false faith in strength and power, looks at this woman—on her face before Christ—and calls her weak or pathetic. She is both; I have no interest in convincing you otherwise. Our Lord tests her by calling her a dog, the normal Jewish, derogatory term for a Gentile, and she humbly says, ‘Yes, I will gladly be your dog, if you will only be my master.’ Our pride cannot take this kind of abasement; we are taught to have self-esteem, to love ourselves first, to be no man’s dog. We all carry some form of the revolutionary and butcher Che Guevara’s stolen battle cry, ‘It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees!’ Which is all well and good until someone shoots you in the back, and your legacy becomes t-shirt sales to unserious undergrads. The faithful Canaanite woman is weak and pathetic, but so is every person the world teaches us is strong. The great difference between she and those who think they are mighty is not muscles or technology or money; no, it is simply the realization that none of those things matter when we stand before the Holy God who created us. We cannot bribe Him; we cannot dazzle Him with our toys, and our strength or our sad story will mean nothing to the God who created a good world from nothing and watched us try to destroy it for nothing.