Draw Close: 21 Days to Know GodSample

I love the promises of faith. Even just a little faith.

“Faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains,” Jesus once said.

My problem is sometimes I don’t feel much faith, how about you? Sometimes I really believe and sometimes I really doubt. Sometimes I “sort of believe” God can help me, come through for me, and do what He promised. And so I feel the need to fake faith or try to muster it up. Fortunately, I don’t need to do either.

That’s why I’m so encouraged by the story of Mark 9. Here Jesus encountered a father whose son had been emotionally and spiritually tormented since childhood. By now, he’d pretty much lost hope that things would ever change. Maybe you have something like that, too.

In desperation, the father asked Jesus to help “if he can.”

Jesus’ response is pretty bold and sassy.

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

But I love most what the father says next.

Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

“I sorta believe,” he confesses. He asks Jesus to meet him halfway. To help him in his unbelief. And Jesus did. And Jesus healed his son and set him free.

God already knows our doubts and struggles. I’m telling you, the seed of faith works well in the soil of honesty. Let’s keep running after God, strengthening our faith by reading and listening to His Word (“faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God”) and staying brutally honest about where we actually are. God can work with that.