Help My Unbelief!

by Sandra Perry
Published January 4, 2008

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!" – Mark 9:21-24 (NIV)

I’d done everything the parenting books and my well-intentioned friends had told me to do, and yet, here was my beloved child, in whom I’m generally well-pleased, having a complete hissy-fit meltdown about her bedtime. I’m not talking about garden-variety petulance; I’m talking full blown red-in-the-face temper tantrum. This was totally out of character for my kid. I was about ten seconds shy of calling my pastor to ask him our church’s stance on exorcism and his immediately availability therefor. Finally, my daughter exhausted herself and fell asleep.

Being the great woman of faith and power that I am, of course I turned to prayer. I asked and fully expected God to answer… immediately, if not sooner. Unfortunately, I didn’t get immediate service, nor did I get it the next night or the next, or the next, or the next. That solitary night was the beginning of about six months’ worth of sleeping issues at my house.

I could tell you that I faithfully persevered through that time resolutely praying and believing God for an answer, but that wouldn’t be true. When I didn’t get the immediate results I had fully expected, my behavior began to closely resemble that of my daughter’s. I threw a spiritual temper tantrum. I believed God could, with one word, completely transform the situation to the peaceful tranquility that I wanted, but for some reason he wouldn’t give me what I wanted when I wanted it. Was God listening? Was I doing something wrong? Was there something somewhere I was missing? I found myself where the father in Mark 9 found himself: believing that God could make it all better, but not understanding why he was taking so long.

How many times do you think the father in the story prayed for his son to be delivered? Imagine the horror of helplessly watching your child’s life constantly threatened by spiritual forces beyond your control? Maybe he’d sought advice from the rabbis that didn’t work. We know he tried getting help from Jesus’ disciples that was worthless. Can you blame the poor guy if his belief was a quart low by the time Jesus arrived?

The most important line of the story is the last one. “Help me overcome my unbelief.” Both the father in this story and I believed in a God that could help us, but we had some serious unbelief questions too. There are always going to be things that happen to us that we don’t understand. Stuff that we believe shouldn’t happen to someone who believes in God. Sometimes God will show us the whys and sometimes he won’t.

I don’t know why my daughter had sleep issues. I’ve never figured it out and she’s not mature enough to explain it to me. All I know is the situation is over and that’s fine with me. Jesus didn’t explain to this father why his son was tormented by demons. He just delivered him, and I’m sure that was good enough for him too.

The trick isn’t in understanding the way every piece falls into place for your life. The trick is in trusting the God who holds the pieces.

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