2229 Help My Unbelief

Where are you lacking the ability to believe Jesus? You believe Jesus is who he says he is – you believe Jesus can do everything he says he can do – but maybe you struggle to believe he will actually do it for you.

Your circumstances tell you something different. The patterns you live in tell you nothing really ever changes for you. You intimately know your struggles. You are personally acquainted with your shortcomings. You’ve been living with your problems. And the truth is, the miraculous powers of Jesus always seem to be for someone else – not you.

Why is that? If Jesus can heal – why hasn’t he healed you? If Jesus can make all things new – why are you still stuck in this old mess? If Jesus holds all this power – why haven’t you seen it working for your family?

We’re ashamed of these questions and feelings, aren’t we? We’ve been told these kinds of doubts indicate our lack of faith. And scripture is actually quite clear, “It is impossible to please God without faith.” So here we are, walking around with a reasonable amount of doubt, feeling like failures. Gosh, God must be really disappointed in you right now, huh?

Actually, no. Your struggle to believe and your wrestling with seeing God’s miraculous works in your life aren’t a failure of faith. This is the PROCESS OF FAITH!

You don’t have to run from this – lean into this. If you currently find yourself in this place of believing in Jesus and his miracle working power, but questioning if his miracles will ever show up personally for you, you’re in the middle of the faith process. This is a beautiful place to be.

Faith invites Jesus’ healing. It was the faith of the leper that Jesus declares brought his healing. Jesus said it was the faith of the mother that brought healing to her daughter. It was the faith of the friends that brought healing to the paralyzed man. Jesus said it was the bleeding woman’s faith that delivered her healing.

Did they still have a reasonable amount of questioning? before their miracle Probably.

Did they wrestle with dismissing themselves thinking they weren’t worthy of approaching Jesus for healing? You bet.

Were they running through a hundred scenarios in their mind of ‘what if this doesn’t work’ as they reached for Jesus? Of course. How do I know? Because every single one of these recipients of a miracle were human. They believed, but at the same time they doubted. Why? Because their faith was in process.

Faith causes you to reach for the hem of Jesus’ robe. Faith causes you to cry out for help. That is pleasing to God.

Doubt is not the opposite of faith. Doubt is wrestling with all that you believe and not understanding some things.

My friend, maybe that’s what you need to hear today – it’s okay that you don’t understand this. It’s okay that you’re still wrestling with some questions. It’s okay that at times you still struggle to believe Jesus would ever personally get involved in your struggles. It’s okay to wrestle it out with those thoughts of things never changing for you. This is your process of faith.

Sometimes we fail to see just how patient God is with us. He doesn’t expect you to be some superhuman who never struggles. Girl, he knew you wouldn’t be perfect – that’s why you need Jesus. His personal involvement in the details of your life and his miraculous power working in you are not dependent on superhuman faith – even a little mustard seed of faith will do.

A faith that is still growing. A faith that is still struggling. A faith that knows he can, but sometimes questions if he will.

Your little tiny seed of faith calls Jesus to show up for you! Let him have those doubts and questions – you don’t have to hide those from him (as if you could anyway.) He wants to show up for you in the middle of your struggle to believe.

Have you ever read the story of the desperate father who struggled to believe Jesus? A man who confessed his doubts. A man who just didn’t know if Jesus would in fact heal his son the way he had heard about him healing others. Let’s read it together today and see what Jesus has for us!

Mark 9: 17-29:

One of the men in the crowd spoke up and said, “Teacher, I brought my son so you could heal him. He is possessed by an evil spirit that won’t let him talk. 18And whenever this spirit seizes him, it throws him violently to the ground. Then he foams at the mouth and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. So I asked your disciples to cast out the evil spirit, but they couldn’t do it.”
19Jesus said to them, “You faithless people! How long must I be with you? How long must I put up with you? Bring the boy to me.”
20So they brought the boy. But when the evil spirit saw Jesus, it threw the child into a violent convulsion, and he fell to the ground, writhing and foaming at the mouth.
21 “How long has this been happening?” Jesus asked the boy’s father.
He replied, “Since he was a little boy. 22The spirit often throws him into the fire or into water, trying to kill him. Have mercy on us and help us, if you can.”
23 “What do you mean, ‘If I can’?” Jesus asked. “Anything is possible if a person believes.”
24The father instantly cried out, “I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief!”
25When Jesus saw that the crowd of onlookers was growing, he rebuked the evil spirit. “Listen, you spirit that makes this boy unable to hear and speak,” he said. “I command you to come out of this child and never enter him again!”
26Then the spirit screamed and threw the boy into another violent convulsion and left him. The boy appeared to be dead. A murmur ran through the crowd as people said, “He’s dead.” 27But Jesus took him by the hand and helped him to his feet, and he stood up.
28Afterward, when Jesus was alone in the house with his disciples, they asked him, “Why couldn’t we cast out that evil spirit?”
29Jesus replied, “This kind can be cast out only by prayer.”

Who were the faithless people? The people in the crowd who were arguing over the disciples failure to heal this boy. The faithless was NOT the father. The father believed, but he honestly struggled with some natural unbelief.

How did Jesus respond to this natural measure of unbelief? HE HEALED HIS SON!

Did Jesus wait until this father overcame all his doubts and questions? Did Jesus’ miracle depend on him understanding and fully expecting his son to be healed? No.

It wasn’t about the father’s questions. It wasn’t about the father’s lack of understanding. It wasn’t about the father’s ability to perform or be perfect. It was about his need being brought to Jesus in an imperfect way during his process of faith. And Jesus responded to his little bit of faith, his believing that sometimes struggled with unbelief, his human nature to question that which he couldn’t understand – AND HIS SON WAS HEALED.

What I see here is someone like you and I. Someone with a reasonable amount of doubt at times. Someone with an imperfect faith that believes, but still has unbelief. Someone NOT disqualified from the miracles of Jesus.

Because even a little faith moves mountains. A little faith reaches for Jesus with one hand while still having a whole lot of questions in the other hand. A little faith says, “Jesus, help me if you can” – all while nothing is impossible for God. A little faith believes, but needs help overcoming your unbelief.

And Jesus responds to that little faith.

This man was not denying Jesus. He believed in Jesus. He believed in Jesus’ power to