I do believe; help my unbelief!

So goes the desperate plea of the father of a demon-possessed boy (Mark 9:24). Jesus has just told him that everything is possible for him who believes. And in response to the man's seemingly contradictory reply, Jesus then proceeds to heal his son, who has been afflicted by this malicious spirit since childhood. And as I read this passage, something amazing occurs to me: Jesus rewarded this man’s imperfect belief.

This is a massive comfort to me, because I know that I believe very imperfectly. Oh, I’ve accepted the truth of the gospel, and I know I believe it, but so often I act in ways that betray the doubt that lingers in my heart. I believe that God is good, but I don’t trust Him fully. I believe that I’m completely forgiven, but my sin still feels like it’s separating me from God sometimes. I believe that it’s only because of Christ’s righteousness that I’m accepted by God, but I still find myself acting like my good deeds will earn me brownie points with God. I believe that total fulfillment can be found in Christ, yet I find myself not wanting to spend time with Him. I believe that sin hurts me and grieves the heart of God, yet I sin still.

If I believed completely and perfectly, I wouldn’t be plagued by these problems. I could entrust myself to the Father without reservation, just as Christ did. Why can’t I do this? It seems so simple! It’s because I’m a fallen man. The great sin of the fall was unbelief which led to disobedience. And that stain still remains on my soul. Even as a follower of Christ, it’s a daily struggle to believe. Which brings me to another amazing thing that occurs to me from this passage: even our imperfect belief is apparently made perfect in Christ. How else could Christ reward the man’s belief in spite of the fact that it was flawed? What’s amazing to me about this is that it’s our belief in the Gospel that allows us to be saved in the first place, yet even this foundational condition of salvation God doesn’t require to be perfect. This is another comfort to me, because I so often feel guilty about the unbelief in my heart… an unhealthy guilt that makes me feel like I don’t deserve to go before God. Which is actually true, but only part of the truth. Because the rest of the amazing truth is that even my fumbling, inept efforts to believe are perfect in the eyes of God because of Christ and His blood.

The final encouragement is that Christ himself is the solution to our unbelief. The man’s solution was to pray to Christ for help in overcoming his unbelief, and this was apparently the appropriate response. So let us pray regularly and fervently for help not just in overcoming this or that sin, but that God Himself would overcome the doubts and disbeliefs in our hearts that lead us to sin in the first place. I look forward to the day when I will fully believe and trust my heavenly Father; when I see him face to face with sanctified eyes and respond to Him with a sanctified heart. But for now I can stand confident in His grace, in spite of the fact that I see more of myself than I’d like to in the following passage from Deuteronomy I read this morning:

“Then I said to you, "Do not be terrified; do not be afraid of them. The LORD your God, who is going before you, will fight for you, as he did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes, and in the desert. There you saw how the LORD your God carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place." In spite of this, you did not trust in the LORD your God, who went ahead of you on your journey, in fire by night and in a cloud by day, to search out places for you to camp and to show you the way you should go.” (Deut 1: 29-33)