“In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don’t.” ~Blaise Pascal
Note: There’s a big challenge in my little world. I wrote the major draft of this before I had knowledge of the challenge – and reworked it for two reasons – to encourage me in the vortex of the challenge – and to encourage those who struggle with just believing God is God. For this past year, I’d wondered why I wrote and couldn’t hit the post button – I think I understand why now – because I needed the message now. Praying this encourages you, too – in your challenges.
Do you believe in God – the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? The God who led his people out of Egypt? The God who punished his chosen people when they’d turned away from him. The God who forgave them?
The God who promised, “Every man will sit under his own vine And under his own fig tree, And no one will make them afraid, For the Lord Almighty has spoken.” ~ Micah 4:4
The God who promised, “Old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand because of great age. And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in its streets.” ~ Zechariah 8: 4-5
The God who promised:
“They shall build houses and inhabit them;
they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
They shall not build and another inhabit;
they shall not plant and another eat;
for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be,
and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
They shall not labor in vain
or bear children for calamity,
for they shall be the offspring of the blessed of the Lord,
and their descendants with them.
Before they call I will answer;
while they are yet speaking I will hear.
The wolf and the lamb shall graze together;
the lion shall eat straw like the ox,
and dust shall be the serpent’s food.
They shall not hurt or destroy
in all my holy mountain,”
says the Lord.” ~ Isaiah 65: 22-25
Do you believe this. . . this is for you?
Do you believe God, the Great I am caused a donkey to speak, or three faithful men believed God would deliver them one way or another from a fiery furnace?
Do you believe God, El Roi, the GOd who sees us hiding from him, running from him – do you believe he loves his children – you and me – despite our sin? That he makes a way to redeem those children – you and me – from the made choices each of us made and continues to make?
Do you believe God, Yahweh, The Lord our Righteousness, The Lord our Shepherd, Do you struggle believing that God sent his only son to be the unblemished forever-sacrifice for our sins so that nothing would ever again separate us from God, nothing except our choice to not believe?
Do you believe that he died on the cross and on the third day, rose again? That between now and when he comes again, he loves us more than we can fathom?
Do you believe in Him – it all starts with that. Are you at least willing? wanting to believe?
Before the miracle came the belief in Him – and the one who sent Him.
“And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. And he marveled because of their unbelief” ~ Mark 6:5.
There was a father who brought his demon-possessed son to Jesus, needing help, wanting help, wanting to believe the unbelievable. I’d say he’d reached the very bottom of himself – his wisdom, whatever wealth he had, his own efforts, that the big love, the big dreams, the big hopes for his son, despite the challenge drove him into the sphere of Jesus whose love was bigger. Love for those around us sometimes are what opens the door to relationship with the Father and his son – love as big and deep as our human can love – and when we’re so helpless, so desperate that we’re willing to meet the Father – all we know if that no earthly father and mother could help us – and so we go to meet him with the only expectations we know – fallible, often incapable expectations – because that is how we are with out.
This father, he dropped all pride in self – and reached out, realizing he couldn’t do it – and willing to believe that Jesus, who claimed to be the son of God could. . . possibly his faith at that point was even smaller than a mustard seed.
“Because you have so little faith,” He answered. “For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you” ~ Matthew 17:20.
This father was willing to try believing, though he didn’t know how – didn’t know where to start – this radical believing. He made a mess of it – reaching out, trying to make the connection to Jesus, the beginning moment of their relationship, saying it all wrong.
“But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us” – the father asked Jesus. (Mark 9:22b)
If!
How many of us go to God with an if mentality. If is almost a gauntlet thrown down – a challenge to someone’s skill, ability, maybe even right to do something, be something, doubting yet daring, hoping to believe that the same time.
If!
I saw a little girl one time running into her house, hollering, “Daddy” to come take care of the bully who’d hurt her. She ran into that house as if she belonged. She ran into the house knowing her daddy would fix her hurt and stop the cause of the hurt.
Ifs are the words of those who don’t feel or believe they belong in their father’s house, don’t have a father they can count on to bind their wounds, heal their hearts and stop the bullies. An if mentality doesn’t know, doesn’t really believe that when they burst into their father’s house, hollering for help, that they will be treated as if they belong, as if they were a favored child.
This father with the demon-possessed son had an “if” self-image – and he projected that self-image onto Jesus.
And Jesus responded to him, “‘If you can’!” (Mark 9:23a).
Note the exclamation point! Exclamation points sometimes express exasperation. A “what-more-do-I-have-to-do-so-you-understand” kind of exasperation! How many times do I have to say this over before you get it?
As someone who is so good at saying things so wrong, I understand exactly how that father feels. Foot-in-Mouth Disease? That’s me! I can give a compliment and leave a person insulted – I’m even better at it when it means so much to me. My younger self would have wanted to just fade into the back of the crowd and run away, mortified I’d made a mess of it with a, “Never mind – sorry I bothered you.”
But the father didn’t. He swallowed his mortified self – waited in hope – because he had nothing left to hope in – hoping for the compassion he’d sought from this savior he had heard about.
Jesus didn’t hold on to his exasperation – he released it, letting it evaporate because I think he recognized in the man the awkwardness of beginning believers who maybe wonder that something so wonderful can be true? And wanting it to the core of their soul if it is? Jesus let his exasperation go because I think he saw a man desperately wanting to believe – who didn’t know how – and he understands us all, our doubts, our mustard-seed faith, our ifs – and He wants nothing more than to help us outgrow the ifs and doubts of who we are to Him.
I don’t know about you, but it makes my heart settle down in a heart-melt kind of way when Jesus said “All things are possible for one who believes” (Mark 9:23b).
The father asked Jesus for compassion – and Jesus delivered that compassion, first in this reponse – and then in the deliverance of the man’s son. I can hear the gentleness, the compassions the man asked for, the love, invitation to believe . . . can you hear it, too?
All things are possible . . . for one who believes.
All . . .
a blind man can see, a lame man walk, a sick woman healed, a child brought to life, a friend brought for healing – and a man’s demon-possessed child. . . All were healed.
All things are possible! All doesn’t exclude anything. Jesus doesn’t deal in tricky small print and exception.
Just don’t expect it do be done with ways only you and I can fathom. Gods ways are not our ways – and he comes up with ways we can not even begin to imagine. . . or day to imagine.
“Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).
If you have trouble believing. . .1) in God and 2) that God wants to “do something” about your challenge, something complete, whole, restoring, maybe even miraculous, then ask yourself, “Do you want to believe? Really want to believe that God is real, that Jesus is real, that salvation, grace, miracles and heaven are real?”
Do you believe it’s for you, too? Because it is.
God already knows the size of your belief. He already knows that maybe sometimes both you and me struggle – but we need to say it to him, to own it – so he can do something about it. I’ve always said, “God’s not your mama who bursts in uninvited to fix her kids problems. God waits to be invited – and then He’s all about it!
. . . and if you really, really want to believe. . . in God . . . just ask him,” I want to believe. Help my unbelief.”
It’s as simple as that!
Blue Cotton Memory 
Oh, how I believe. God has been faithful all my life. He is the great I AM. Blessings to you! I’m your neighbor at the #TellHisStory linkup.
How good to bump into you again, to rub shoulders with you over at Mary’s place. I feel blessed …
Oh sister! Preach! I love this! Thank you!
This is so good!!!
[…] is Well When Believing is Hard, Jesus Shows us How Part I: When Easter, Passover, and Christmas Collide Part II: When Easter, Passover and Christmas […]