I Do Believe - Help My Unbelief! [Mark 9]

 20They brought the boy to Him. When he saw Him, immediately the spirit threw him into a convulsion, and falling to the ground, he began rolling around and foaming at the mouth. 21And He asked his father, "How long has this been happening to him?" And he said, "From childhood. 22"It has often thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. But if You can do anything, take pity on us and help us!"

 23And Jesus said to him, " 'If You can?' All things are possible to him who believes."

 24Immediately the boy's father cried out and said, "I do believe; help my unbelief."

 25When Jesus saw that a crowd was rapidly gathering, He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, "You deaf and mute spirit, I command you, come out of him and do not enter him again." 26After crying out and throwing him into terrible convulsions, it came out; and the boy became so much like a corpse that most of them said, "He is dead!" 27But Jesus took him by the hand and raised him; and he got up.

 28When He came into the house, His disciples began questioning Him privately, "Why could we not drive it out?"

 29And He said to them, "This kind cannot come out by anything but prayer."

Here is a father that is so desperate to see his son well that he cries out to Jesus, "'But if You can do anything, take pity on us and help us!'  And Jesus said to him, 'If You can? All things are possible to him who believes.'" 

Does he dare to hope that Jesus can do anything to help his son?  Aren't we just like this father?  We have hoped many times and each time our hopes have been dashed. Do we dare to believe?  But here is the Son of God saying that is is possible.  There is no "if".  He can help, He can heal. 

The father wants to believe that ALL things are possible. So he dares to hope again and cries out feebly, "I do believe."  Even as the words come out of his mouth, he realizes the doubt, the fear to hope again.  But then it rings true in his heart that "all things are possible" and that includes giving him belief that he doesn't have.  He can't believe but God can.  He submits to that truth about God and asks God to do it for him, "help me believe!"

May we join this man in recognizing that we can't believe but that God can cause us to believe.  Let's cry out to Him today to give us the faith to believe that all things are possible with Him.