Mark 9:24

I've been thinking about this post since last week, when Casa Doyle (minus one) came to join us for dinner.  While the kids were playing, Alice, Kim and I were discussing Faith.  I don't recall the exact train of thought that this caboose was on, but somehow we got on to the subject of the "Gospel of Prosperity" that we sometimes hear today.  "God wants you to be successful.  God wants you to be financially well off." 

This sort of "preaching" also usually refuses to acknowledge suffering of any sort.  Suffering should be avoided at all costs.  Suffering is not something to deal with.  In fact, if you just have enough faith, all of your ailments will be healed.  And that is what our conversation zeroed in on.

I listen to KSBJ every day during my commute, and one day the morning DJ mentioned that his daughter is suffering with multiple issues, but they are praying every day for a complete and total healing.  Callers were calling in expressing their prayers, and others to say that they had this or that ailment, but God healed them completely.  The DJ asked one girl who had been struggling with an illness for some time if she could pinpoint when exactly she was healed.  The girl replied that when she really believed that God would heal her, that's when the healing came.

There is something about that statement that really strikes a chord with me.  There's a song on KSBJ right now by Addison Road called "What Do I Know of Holy" that puts it well in the second verse:

"I guess I thought that I had figured You out,
I knew all the stories and I learned to talk about,
How You were mighty to save,
But those were only empty words on a page..."

We have all heard stories of out of miraculous healings happening, and as Christians, we believe that God, the Creator of all things, has power over His creation, including the power to cure the incurable disease.  The question then becomes, "why doesn't God heal everyone?"  Is it really, as the girl on the radio said, tied to our faith?

The title of this post is from Mark, and Mark speaks a lot about our faith.  It is here that we find that Jesus is unable to perform any miracles in Nazareth because of the lack of peoples' faith (Mark 6:1-6).  So, it seems there is some scriptural evidence to the young woman's claim.

So, does that mean that if you are praying for a healing and it doesn't come, that your faith is lacking?  I don't believe that, and I turn to the story of Lazarus in the Gospel of John for my reasoning.  When Jesus hears that Lazarus is sick, he doesn't immediately go to him.  Instead Jesus waits for two days before leaving to go be with Lazarus, and by the time Christ was in Bethany, Lazarus was dead.  Jesus loved Lazarus (John 11:3), so why would he wait?  Because He was going to use the situation to Glorify the Father (John 11:4), and strengthen the disciples' belief (John 11:15).

How many times have we said with Martha and Mary, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died"?  Brother, Sister, Son, Daughter, Father, Mother, Husband, Wife?  But He IS with us, and He will not forsake us.

So what is my point to this whole post?  I fall into the category of believers that maintain God can perform miracles, but usually chooses not to, not based on our lack of faith, but on the good that will be born of suffering.  God will not leave us.  His hand is always leaving fingerprints on our situations.  But, basically, "don't expect a miracle."  It bothers me that I fall into this category.  I feel like I've mailed in the chance for my faith to move mountains (Matthew 17:20.) 

So I say along with the boy's father in Mark 9:24, "Lord, I do believe, help my unbelief!"