“How long has this been happening?” Jesus
asked the boy’s father. He replied, “Since he was a little boy. The spirit
often throws him into the fire or into water, trying to kill him. Have mercy on
us and help us, if you can.” “What do you mean, ‘If I can?’” Jesus asked.
“Anything is possible if a person believes.” The father instantly cried out, “I
do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief!” (Mark 9:21-24)
Imagine you had this
killer ministry going on where you were healing hospitals full of sick people
every day; casting out demons right and left. Then, one day, a dad brings his
son to you and right there in front of your very eyes the boy has a seizure.
So, you do what you’ve always done – you whip off your jacket to expose the “S”
on your T-shirt, say what you’ve been saying, and pray like you’ve been praying
and ….. nothing. So, you clear your throat, and you say what you’ve been
saying, but just a little louder, and you pray what you’ve been praying, but
just a little harder and …. crickets. The boy’s convulsing, the dad has this
deer-caught-in-the-headlights kind of look on his face, and you? Kryptonite.
So, what do you
do? Do you just figure that the boy must have had some sort of un-confessed sin
in his life and that’s what’s causing the disconnect? If so, that’d be like saying
that sin can stop the power of God, which you know isn’t true – if that were
true then no one could be saved. Or, do you declare the boy’s been healed, even
though he’s still writhing on the ground? Try that and the father would think you
were nuts. How about simply being puzzled? Now there’s an honest reaction, and
that would be the same reaction the disciples had when they were confronted
with this very situation.
But the story’s kind
of mysterious because many of us would like to know just a bit more about the
circumstances. For instance, where’s the mom? Was he a single dad? How old is the
boy? Is he a toddler, a teenager or a young adult? And where’s the medical
records and his chart? Is there a doctor in the house? Have we nothing to go on
in terms of a possible diagnosis? Maybe we should just call House – he always seems to figure this
stuff out in an hour’s time on TV. There’s just so little information about
this incident that we tend to make stuff up to help us fill in the gaps in our
imaginations.
The story is actually
pretty simple. A man brings his demon-possessed son to Jesus’ disciples to be
healed. They can’t, so the boy is brought to Jesus while a crowd gathers, at
which time the boy convulses and the crowd collectively gasps. When asked, the
dad tells Jesus that this has been going on for a long time, and that the boy’s
been close to being burned alive or drowned more times than he can count. And
then he says to Jesus, “Have mercy on us and help us, if you can.” (Pause) And
then Jesus, with those olive-brown eyes, maybe stared at the dad and the dad’s thinking,
“Uh oh. This can’t be good.” “What do you mean “If,” Kimosabe?”
There are at
least two points to be noticed in this story. The first is that Jesus was
helping the dad to understand that the issue was not with Jesus’ power, but
with the man’s faith. Obviously, the man had some faith in Jesus or he wouldn’t
have bothered to bring the boy in the first place. Or, maybe he was just
desperate and willing to try anything. But, for whatever reason, his trust wasn’t
at the level it needed to be. He still had some doubts. Maybe he was growing in
his faith; but the fact is, he was struggling. Been there?
Second, Jesus’ affirmation
that “Anything is possible if a person believes” must be read within the
context of the circumstances in which the statement was made. The Lord wasn’t
saying that anyone can do anything if they only believe. That’d be like saying
you can spread your arms and fly off the Coronado Bridge like an eagle, if you
believe. But regardless of what you believe, you’ll drop like a bag of cement into
San Diego bay and maybe, if you’re lucky, live to tell about it.
In response to
Jesus’ challenge, “If?” the father cries out with the sort of agony that only a
parent could know, “I do believe; but help me overcome my unbelief!” But that’s
kind of a strange statement because it’s internally inconsistent, right? Well,
maybe. But Jesus, rather than condemning the man for a faith overwhelmed by
doubt, immediately rebuked the unclean spirit and commanded it to leave the boy
— never to enter him again. In fact, the exorcism was so complete that the
crowd thought the boy was dead. The spiritual confusion of the father, however,
is so typical of the intellectual and emotional turmoil that can plague any one
of us at any given moment in time. Let’s face it, no one has a “red-hot” faith around
the clock. For instance, we know there’s a God who made us because the evidence
is so overwhelming that only a fool could deny it. (Psalm 14:1; Rom. 1:20-23) And,
intellectually, we know that God cares for us because the giving of his Son as
a sacrifice for our sins is ample evidence of that fact.
But sometimes we
hurt so badly, physically, spiritually and/or emotionally, that our hearts
overpower our heads. Agony pushes logic aside and we begin to “think” with our
feelings. Oh, we still believe, but we’re angry because we feel neglected. We can’t
understand why God doesn’t rush to our rescue. So, we pout and refuse to talk
to him. And then we think we’ll punish God further by refusing to go to church.
We may even say harsh things to him, almost literally shaking our fist in his
face. The truth is that it’s at times like these that we need to get a grip. We
need to cry out, “Lord, help me overcome my unbelief!” We need to ask for his
patience. We need to weep. We need to analyze our situation and consider
whether we’ve contributed to our own delinquency. But what we absolutely must
not do is give in to our frustration. Because once we quit struggling with our
faith, and then let it slide, we’re headed down a slippery slope that could
lead to eternal ruin.
A lot of us think
of faith and unbelief as opposite ends of the same rope. But, according to
Jesus, it’s possible to believe and doubt all at the same time. “I tell you the
truth, if you have faith and do not doubt,
not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but you can also say to this
mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done.” (Matt.
21:21) You see, what the father was saying is that he had faith, but he also had
unbelief. And his unbelief had paralyzed his faith. It’s kind of like having
two teams of horses hooked up to the same wagon and pulling in opposite directions.
One team negates the other and you get nowhere.
So, after
identifying the problem, i.e., unbelief,
Jesus later assured the disciples that their faith was not the issue. In fact,
even if their faith was the size of a little mustard seed it was sufficient to
move mountains. The real obstacle was their unbelief. Later in Matthew’s
gospel, Jesus even called them an “unbelieving and perverse generation.” (vs. 17:17)
It’s like Jesus was saying, “You had faith, but it was undermined by your
unbelief.” Now, some translations interpret “unbelief” as “little faith.” For
instance, Jesus’ answer in Matthew 17:20 begins, “Because of your little faith” – at least in some
translations. But it makes for a poor translation as it makes Jesus sound like he’s
contradicting Himself. The Greek word for unbelief (apistia),
as used in Matthew 17:20, is the same word used by the boy’s father when he
says, “Help me overcome my unbelief.” So, although some translators equate
unbelief with little faith, Jesus – it would appear – is saying that little
faith is not the issue since if a little faith can move a mountain, it can
surely heal a demon-possessed boy.
In other words, it’s
not the size of your faith that matters so much as whether your faith is
handicapped by doubt and unbelief. It’s kind of like driving a car with the
emergency brake on – you can still drive the car, but you’ll get pretty crummy gas
mileage and wear the emergency brake out. Pure, childlike faith, untainted by
grown-up unbelief is what moves mountains. Pure faith is a strong faith. So, what
kind of unbelief undid the father and Jesus’ disciples? I don’t know for sure,
but maybe they were unnerved by the sight of a convulsing child, frothing at
the mouth. Any seizure is frightening, especially in a child, and it would have
been especially terrifying knowing that there was a demon behind it. Unfortunately,
natural unbelief is fueled by what we see and hear. And when it comes to
medical issues, in particular, our unbelief sends us to WebMD looking for reassurance and hope – even if we have faith. Oh,
we may be declaring the promises of God over our situation, but we’re also feeding
our doubts by heeding our circumstances.
So, how do you deal
with unbelief? You starve it. (Mark 9:29) You see, unbelief that arises from
ignorance and bad theology can be corrected by showing people the truth. (Mark
6:6) But overcoming natural unbelief requires prayer and fasting. Your body needs
to learn that it’s not in charge, and by fasting for a time you’re telling your
five senses that there’s more to life than just bread. (Matt. 4:4) Prayer and
fasting doesn’t necessarily move God to action, and it certainly doesn’t move
the devil, but fasting and prayer will move you. It affects you. So, instead of
trying to build a bigger and bigger faith, maybe we need to stop feeding our unbelief.
In other words, we need to fix the right problem.
When there’s a
problem in our lives, a strategy that Satan sometimes uses is to divert our
attention onto “fixing” the thing that’s not broken. That way, we’re doubly
messed up: we’ve “fixed” the part that’s not broken, and not fixed the part
that needs fixing – assuming we can “fix” anything in the first place. But if
Christ lives in you, there’s nothing wrong with your faith. You might have a
problem with unbelief, but your faith is not the issue. It’s unbelief that
limits the power of God in your life. And today, there’s a lot of emphasis on
faith, and the getting more of it. So, like the disciples, we pray, “Lord,
increase my faith.” (Luke 17:5) But Jesus’ response to that request was, “Your
faith is not the problem – even a little faith will get the job done.” (Luke
17:6, my paraphrase). And the reason why our faith is not the problem is
because it’s His faith, not ours.
Paul said that he
was justified by the faith of Jesus Christ and
lived by the faith of the Son of God.
(Gal. 2:16, 20) He understood that faith was a gift from God. (Eph. 2:8) And
that’s why when Peter healed the crippled man outside the temple to the crowd’s
utter astonishment, he gave all the credit to a faith that had come from God.
(Acts 3:16) Unfortunately, too many times we think there’s something wrong with
our faith, but that’s like saying God gives defective gifts. He doesn’t.
So stop worrying
so much about your faith – if you’re a believer, you already have enough faith to
move your mountain. Maybe it’s unbelief that’s the problem and, if so, a little
prayer and fasting may be just what the Doctor ordered, and then be sure to
schedule an appointment to see him next week for a follow-up.
Grace,
Randy
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