Reading 26
Help my unbelief
The reading
Mark 9:14-29
Coming to the disciples, he saw a great multitude around them, and scribes questioning them. Immediately all the multitude, when they saw him, were greatly amazed, and running to him, greeted him. He asked the scribes, "What are you asking them?" One of the multitude answered, "Teacher, I brought to you my son, who has a mute spirit; and wherever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams at the mouth, and grinds his teeth, and wastes away. I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they weren't able." He answered him, "Unbelieving generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him to me."
They brought him to him, and when he saw him, immediately the spirit convulsed him, and he fell on the ground, wallowing and foaming at the mouth. He asked his father, "How long has it been since this has come to him?" He said, "From childhood. Often it has cast him both into the fire and into the water, to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us, and help us." Jesus said to him, "If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes." Immediately the father of the child cried out with tears, "I believe. Help my unbelief!"
When Jesus saw that a multitude came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to him, "You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him, and never enter him again!" After crying out and convulsing him greatly, it came out of him. The boy became like one dead; so much that most of them said, "He is dead." But Jesus took him by the hand, and raised him up; and he arose. When he had come into the house, his disciples asked him privately, "Why couldn't we cast it out?" He said to them, "This kind can come out by nothing, except by prayer and fasting."
The companions
Psalm 42:1-11 (selected)
As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants after you, God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night, while they continually ask me, "Where is your God?" Why are you in despair, my soul? Why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God! For I shall still praise him for the saving help of his presence. Deep calls to deep at the noise of your waterfalls. All your waves and your billows have swept over me. The LORD will command his loving kindness in the daytime. In the night his song shall be with me: a prayer to the God of my life. Why are you in despair, my soul? Hope in God! For I shall still praise him, the saving help of my countenance, and my God.
Habakkuk 3:17-19
For though the fig tree doesn't flourish, nor fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive fails, the fields yield no food; the flocks are cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls: yet I will rejoice in the LORD. I will be joyful in the God of my salvation! The LORD, the Lord, is my strength. He makes my feet like deer's feet, and enables me to go in high places.
A word for the week
A father brings his sick son to Jesus, and out of his mouth comes one of the most honest prayers in the whole Bible, seven words that have been the lifeline of doubters ever since: I believe; help my unbelief. Keep that close, because it is the prayer for everyone who wants to believe and finds their faith full of holes, which is to say, for almost all of us at one time or another.
Here is the scene. Jesus comes down from the mountain to find a commotion: his disciples have failed to heal a boy, and a crowd is arguing. The boy's father explains; his son has been tormented since childhood by something that throws him to the ground, into fire, into water, trying to destroy him. I asked your disciples to help, he says, and they could not. You can feel the exhaustion in him, a father who has watched his child suffer for years and just had his last hope come up empty. And then he says to Jesus, with the caution of a man who has been disappointed too many times: if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.
If you can. Jesus catches the word and turns it back: if you can? Everything is possible for the one who believes. And now comes the moment. The father, this worn-down, half-hoping, half-despairing man, cries out with tears, and he does not pretend. He does not claim a faith he does not have. He does not say, yes Lord, I believe completely. He says the true thing, the thing underneath: I believe; help my unbelief. Which means: I have some faith, and it is shot through with doubt, and I am bringing you both at once, because they are both in me and I will not lie to you about it.
And here is the good news the whole church has clung to ever since. Jesus does not turn him away for it. He does not say, come back when your faith is stronger, when you have sorted out your doubts, when you can pray with full conviction. He heals the boy right there. The father's mixed, honest, imperfect faith, faith with its unbelief hanging out in the open, was enough. It was enough because it was real, and because it was aimed at the right place: not at his own ability to believe, but at Jesus.
This is worth holding onto, because so many people stay away from God thinking they need to resolve all their doubts first, to arrive with a clean, complete, unwavering faith, or not come at all. This father shows you that is not how it works. You do not have to have it all figured out. You do not have to feel certain. You can come exactly as you are, believing and doubting in the same breath, and say, honestly, I believe; help my unbelief, and it is enough to bring to him. In fact it may be the truest prayer there is, because it does the one thing pretended faith never does: it tells God the truth about where you actually are.
So bring him your real faith, the mixed kind, the kind with cracks in it. Do not dress it up. He is not asking you to manufacture a certainty you do not have. He is asking you to bring what you have, doubt and all, and hand it to him. I believe; help my unbelief. Pray that honestly, and you are closer to him than any pretender ever gets.
At the table
Where have you been staying away from God until you could believe more perfectly? What would it be like to pray, honestly, "I believe; help my unbelief," and bring him the mixed faith you actually have?
Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (public domain). The divine name is rendered "the LORD" in the companions.