God’s people experience both faith and doubt in their journey through life. Maybe it’s not doubt to the level of denying God’s existence, but we can see many examples laid out for us in God’s word of both conditions of faith and doubt happening to godly people.
Satan works tirelessly to sow seeds of doubt. Doubt is something that can grab us, and it can grow and fester. However, there are methods to help prevent doubt, or to overcome it, and to continue to grow in faith instead. There are points from a story in Mark 9 for us to consider regarding faith and doubt.
Beginning in Mark 9:14: Jesus comes upon a large crowd of people surrounding his disciples. The people were all irritated and arguing. Jesus asks, “What’s going on here?” And a man explains to Him that His disciples have been trying to cast a demon out of this man’s son but have failed in their attempt. We learn about the terrible suffering that this man and boy have been experiencing for most of this boy’s life. He is an only son and is frequently physically harmed by the demon. Breaking into verse 22, the boy’s father then says to Jesus:
“… ‘if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.’ 23And Jesus said to him, ‘If you can! All things are possible for one who believes.’ 24Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, ‘I believe; help my unbelief!’” (Mark 9:22-24 ESV)
Jesus had become well known for performing some incredible miracles. He would see just a mustard seed of faith in someone, and then heal them. And on most of those occasions Jesus told the recipient of the miracle, “Your faith has saved you,” or “Your faith has made you well.”
On the flip side, when Jesus visited His hometown, He didn’t do many miracles because of their unbelief (Matthew 13:58). A low number of miracles is not because of Christ’s inability; it’s just due to His self-imposed policy of restraint in cases of unbelief. When He was met with a wall of unbelief, miracles were inappropriate.
And this boy’s father was very conflicted. He had doubts. He had been dealing with this horrific issue for years, doing everything he could think of to help his son (Luke 9:37-42). There was likely a cover of shame over them because many in the community probably judged this couple thinking they must have sinned horribly to deserve such a thing. However, this father probably had gone to other spiritual leaders and then to the disciples and all of that to no avail. So it’s a bit understandable why there was some doubt in this man in this request.
And this man is a lot like us. Each of us has unique personalities and experiences that make us uniquely vulnerable to certain forms of unbelief. Fears and disappointments shape our expectations. Getting help for our vulnerabilities to unbelief is vital because it can be exceedingly difficult for us to see them. God wants to help us, but we do need to ask Him. When the father asked Jesus, “If you can help, then help me”, we might expect a compassionate, gentle, “Yes,” but instead what do we see? Somewhat of a rebuke: “What do you mean, if I can?”
But the boy’s father says, “I believe. Help my unbelief.” So, while it’s not perfect, it’s a step in the right direction. It shows a certain level of humility and helplessness. Jesus saw the potential in this man. And He uses it for a teaching point because He sees the potential in all of us as well.
Due to all sorts of unique experiences over the years, many may have felt somewhat cursed with a unique vulnerability to unbelief. The truth is that disfunction and disunity is not God’s will for anybody, especially in families or the church. Healing, unity, and love is His will. But He won’t provide until He finds faith. Remember, He didn’t do much in His own hometown although He clearly wanted to. We are His hometown now. We are His spiritual temple and He desires to make His spiritual temple clean.
Jesus said in Mark 9, “That all things are possible for the one who believes.” Dealing with unbelief is difficult because its presence is often subtle. We don’t always see it clearly. And it has roots in our unique experiences and our temperaments, which make us uniquely vulnerable to its deceit. When something awful happens, perhaps to our child, do we ask God, “Why did You let this happen? Are You really looking out for us? Are You really there?”
Our doubts can come to the surface, and they almost seem understandable and justifiable. That is extremely dangerous spiritually and it is misleading. We need God to show us our unbelief, and sometimes that means a bit of a rebuke. We need to be willing to take it. He will answer a prayer that says, “I believe, help my unbelief.” He will help you expose it and fight it.
In Mark 9, Jesus makes clear the issue is that faith in Him must be genuine to be effective. And also of critical importance, is to understand that our belief grows over time in accordance with both our understanding of the love of God and our willingness to stop trying to control everything. Letting go of control doesn’t mean doing nothing. It means knowing God’s mind and will, and staying close to Him in prayer and study of His word. We must let go of our will while submitting to His. It’s called living faith.
We can’t stop at just believing in the existence of God. James 2:19 says that even the demons believe in His existence and yet tremble. Their faith is dead and ours is to be alive and growing. When we doubt, we can ask for more faith. In this we acknowledge that our faith itself comes from God. An unbeliever has no interest in having more faith to be made willing to obey. But we, as believers, know that our faith and obedience are always deficient.
Christ showed that unbelief is not something to ignore. It needs to be revealed by God and dealt with. It’s not uncommon to have doubts in our faith during difficult times. Feelings of fear, of frustration, of disappointment may make us doubt our faith. Nonetheless there’s great comfort and assurance that our faith can be renewed and strengthened through fixing our eyes on the author and perfector of our faith and learning more about His power and love and His past faithfulness to us (Hebrews 12:1-2).
Tim Vail