Jesus asked the boy's father, "How long has he been like this?"
"From childhood," he answered. "It has often thrown him into fire or water
to kill him. But if you can do anything take pity on us and help us."
"If you can?" said Jesus. "Everything is possible for him who
believes."
Immediately the boy's father exclaimed, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief
(Mk. 9:21-24).
We are faced all too often with difficult situations in
which we believe more in our ability to doubt than in God's ability to work in spite of
our doubts. For in the midst of certain events we cross our fingers and hope that our
faith will outlast our circumstances, and it seems that the tighter we try to hang on to
our faith the more difficult it becomes. For in reality, as we fear losing faith we have
in essence already began to doubt. The doubt grows--our faith weakens--and we react. And
then it is time to pick up the pieces.
For some of us, that is when the real trouble begins. That is when we begin to analyze
what went wrong, and we try to determine where we messed up. We might begin to think,
"If only my faith were stronger. . ." or "If only I could have" done
this or done that. This is the time we begin to list out all of the possible errors, blame
ourselves for messing up, and then determine we are hopeless.
Perhaps it would be good at this point to remind ourselves which of us is God. Though it
is not us who are God, one might think that we think it is. For you see, we act as though
we have so much power over all of our circumstances. We take all of our scenarios in hand
and determine all of the ways we have changed the course of our lives. We act as though
God's will changes and is conditional--as though the administration of His will in our
lives is directly proportional to our performance.
What we must keep in mind is that anything we do, or don't do; any amount of faith we have
or lack, or any direction we choose never surprises our Lord. He is quite aware when we
are about to make a mistake, and He knows when and where our faith is going to give out.
But rather than steer us away from such catastrophe He has chosen to take us through it.
God is not sitting up in Heaven looking down at us and shaking His head in
frustration--saying to Himself, "There he goes again. What am I going to do
now." The point is that God is greater than our mistakes and is more than able to
keep us on a path He has chosen for us if we veer off from time to time because we have
misread His purpose in and around a particular event, and regarding His will. If our
hearts are toward Him, if our desire is truly to serve Him and do His will, He will
correct us and help us to get back on track--we just need to trust Him to do that. For our
faith is not placed in our ability to believe, but in His ability to help us in the midst
of our unbelief. In this we see the faith that moves mountains, because we know it is not
our faith that moves the mountains, but Who we place our faith in.
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