My Unbelief

Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24)

The tension I continually face between belief and doubt keeps playing itself out on these pages. If you find me redundant, it’s not that I don’t know I keep covering the same ground. I do know. But each day brings yet a new moment for me to choose one or the other.

Belief.

Or doubt. 

And I wrestle with the tension all day long. 

::

I often feel much like the father in Mark 9, who came to Jesus in complete desperation, pleading for the release of his son who was possessed by a demon. He had heard of this Jesus, and believed He was his one last hope to see his son delivered. 

This father had surely faced disappointment before, even just moments before, as Jesus’ own disciples failed to restore his son. And so now he came to Jesus, perhaps in a mix of hope and belief, but with doubt beginning to stain the edges. 

“I asked Your disciples to drive out the spirit, but they could not,” the anguished father told Jesus. 

::

He had reason to doubt. He’d stood by helplessly while a demon tormented his beloved son since his childhood. He’d watched his son thrash and convulse on the ground, out of control, foaming at the mouth. He seen his son, under the power of an unknown force, throw himself into water or fire. He’d seen people look away, even run away, in abject fear and disgust. 

Yet he’d never found a way to bring him back. He was the boy’s own father, and he could not help him. 

Even that very same day, his hopes had been dashed once more when these men, men that he had heard were with the Master and could do what He did, could not help him. 

If they couldn’t help him, why should he believe their Master? 

Was it just more snake oil?

Was there any hope at all?

::

Of course there was hope. 

The Master was his hope. His only hope.

He brought his son to Jesus, and they talked a while about his tortured son. At last, the father asked Jesus to move on his son’s behalf. “But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us,” he begged.

“‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for him who believes.”

And at that moment, the tension the father fought between belief and doubt burst out in the most contradictory of exclamations. “I do believe,” he cried out. “Help me overcome my unbelief!”

::

My same cry, daily.

I do believe!

Help me overcome my unbelief!

How can I say those things in the same breath? 

::

I say them all the time. Together. In the same sentence.

I believe, and I doubt. 

I believe, but I see doubt creep in. And so I, like the young man’s father, beg God to help me believe more. To help me believe it all, with all. 

To help me, in the midst of my doubt, to believe like I say I do.

::