Faith: such a mysterious word, noting something that cannot be done on its own, but only through the grace of God. It's interesting because I was struck by it tonight. Tonight it occured to me that what goal do we expect to reach in praying if we don't have the faith to believe things will happen? I'm in Matthew 9 today when Jesus continually says, "Your faith has made you well," or connects the healings to their faith. In the latter part the two blind men come to Jesus crying for mercy. His first question is, "Do you believe that I am able to do this?" Then Jesus says, "According to your faith will it be done to you." That's amazing to me. According to their faith. agh, I wish I had that faith. I think this is the question that God asks us time and time again in our prayer life and daily existence. "Do you believe that I can do this- heal your grandmother from cancer, enter into a dear friend's life, provide a spouse, get that job, or even give you someone to talk to, make you be satisfied with him alone, give you courage when you're afraid, be real to you, etc. We ask God so many things and then often seemed shocked when these things happen. Why is that? According to your faith will it be done to you. I'm not saying that if something is fulfilled it means you had great faith in that circumstance, surely our Heavenly Father knows all things and works things out according to our good.
Ah, but then the question is raised as to the attaining of such faith. As previously stated it does not come in a neatly tied box or cannot be humanly generated. That's unfortunate for those of us that are the bull headed, I can do it on my own and don't need anyone folks. But ah, Jesus came to call the sinners because the healthy aren't in need of a doctor, so maybe I should seek out my sin, in order to realize that I too am in great need of dependence on a Savior and cannot do anything to receive eternal life. So to answer this we turn to the Mark's gospel chapter 9 verses 22b to 24. I think this is such a humble way to come to Jesus. As strange as it may sound to us Bible belters, maybe this is where we should start in prayer. This man comes to Jesus in all his questioning and uncertainty and dares not act like he's got it all together, but instead says, "if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us." Sure we can read our Bibles and listen to "strong believers" tell us that God can do all things, but I think we have to grasp and believe that for ourselves, and not merely take someone's word for it. I think my whole life I've just had this understanding that God is over all things, but I've hardly come to Him in my true heart. My true heart is a very human heart that has huge valleys of unbelief and doubt. My true heart screams, "I'm praying, but I'm going to try and take care of this myself, I'm telling you I want to give it to you, but I don't believe you can actually handle it by yourself. Your way is the hard way, and I just want to relax and have fun in life." Many of those statements can lead to other topics,but that would take far too long.
My point is that to build a house you have to lay a foundation. You can't start at the second floor. I think we have this scripture memorizing, tell as many people about Jesus and life is good complex in our Christian society and we've never allowed ourselves to be real about our unbelief, our questioning. Everything is possible to him who believes. But I think that's an outcome and not a beginning. A beginning is saying with this man, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!" Do never come upon this question in life to me if fatal and will at some point stop your Christian life in its tracks and you will question all of life, even the existence of God himself. But I think even here God welcomes honesty. Help my unbelief.
Isn't the God of the Bible the same God of today? So why are thousands not being saved in one day, as the church of Acts, or why are miracles and healings not happening by the touch of a disciples hand and a prayer? why? Maybe one reason could be because we've lost the firm foundation, we lost our honesty in our 'walk with Jesus'. Everything has to be perfect and going well. We've lost our faith. We've lost the necessity of a network of believers. We've lost knowing that God is first Father and wants us to pour our true hearts and feelings out to Him- that to come to Him in our mask is utterly useless. I've put on a happy face my whole life. I've been the girl that's had it all together. IT'S NOT WORTH IT. That life is not worth living for. And the hardest thing is that I can't just cast it aside and the people-pleasing, I'm a great role model life disappear. Don't be fouled. In the accounts of Jesus telling people to follow him and they immediately dropped what they were doing and followed him, don't think that all of the sudden their lives were completely right. They still had the fisherman mindsets, the skimming off the top as tax collectors brain, but they realized that following Jesus was worth the hard road learning how to be more like Jesus and less like their human nature. Help me, Father, for I know not what I am doing. Romans 7:15-25.
