Mark 9:14-29 tells the story of Jesus, a crowd, faithlessness, a spirit-possessed son and a desperate father.
Even with the benefit of reading in hindsight, there should be features that are familiar to people reading it. This doesn’t have to do with children in trouble. This is an issue of faith and faithlessness.
Where is the faithlessness? In the disciples who could not heal the boy? The father in not believing for his son’s healing? The crowd for their lack of faith that the healing could take place?
Wherever the faithlessness is, Jesus talks to all three parties about it. He is not just talking to those three parties, He talks to us today. In verse 19 he cries out against the generation. In verse 23 he addresses the father’s conditional request. In verse 29 he addresses the disciples’ issue. Their issue, he says, is an issue of prayer.
Yet by prayer here, I suggest, Jesus is not just talking about being able to talk to God. He is talking about connecting with God so that whatever He does, it is not a question of ‘if’ it is a commanding statement of faith.
I read it and I am like the desperate father. I acknowledge that too often my faith in God is in the conditional. If He can. It is as though I don’t know the God who reveals Himself in Scripture and in His Son and by His Spirit. It is as though I am uncertain about His will – yet He invites me to consult Him to KNOW His will and to live in it.
I am like the desperate father. My desperation is to see the evil spirits that have captured the hearts and minds of young people in my community commanded to leave them and never to return. My desperation is to see the evil spirits that possess so many in the dark and deceived world is commanded to leave and never to return. I want to see people set free by the power of the Holy Spirit to see Christ crucified and glorified and follow Him.
Some of my brothers and sisters in Christ want to see that on a massive scale. I can understand that desire. I want to see that happen on every scale, starting in my home and then going into every area of influence God positions me. I want to see that among those who follow Jesus with me.
I want to see that. And I recognise my frailty. I don’t excuse it. I don’t wish to dwell in it. Yet I acknowledge it. And like the desperate father, looking in the mirror, at my beloved family, the community in which I live and the world at large, like that father I cry out.
I believe; help my unbelief.
(NB: Big thanks to my sis-in-Christ, Lydia, for the reminder of the story this morning.)
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
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