If You can?” echoed Jesus. “All things are possible to him who believes!”
Immediately, the boy’s father cried out, “I do believe; help my unbelief!”
(Mark 9:23-24)
Belief is not a static activity. You don’t receive it then not use it in life and expect it to be strong. Belief requires the person to exercise faith for it to grow. The father in this passage believed Jesus could do miracles. He was unsure if Jesus would do a miracle for him and his son or if He would do this particular miracle.
Was his uncertainty because he felt lower in status than Jesus? Did he feel he didn’t deserve to be in Jesus’ presence? Was the father afraid people would laugh at him if his son wasn’t healed? Or had the father not grown in his faith so that his belief would include trusting in God’s care for his demon-possessed son’s life?
What keeps you from going to Jesus? Unbelief? Lack of faith growth? Feeling unworthy? Fear of what God and/or people will expect of you from that point? Never giving your dreams and hopes to God, like the hopes the father had for his son’s life? Each person can have these and other blocks to growth in faith in God.
God gives belief to anyone who will accept it. Belief resides in your heart, but it’s not belief until it is acted upon. Faith must be lived out. Each person must wrestle with his doubts of faith and grow stronger in his belief in God. The wrestling is internal. When the wrestling with doubts and faith in God results in positive actions of belief, faith grows.
Will you act upon the belief God gifts to you?
Wrestle
with and toss off your doubts. Grow in your faith in God. Give your doubts to
God, like the father in this passage did, and grow closer to Him. You are never
alone; God is always with you. Become like the father and immediately believe
God can do that for which you need.
