FAITH CONNECTION – FARMERSVILLE UMC
Ministry Updates for Thursday, July 30th, 2020
Faith Connection emails will be coming from my email this week. – Carol Barnes
Today’s Faith Connection was contributed by Mary Jacoby
Scripture: Mark 9:23-24
Jesus said to him, “‘If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.’ Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, ‘Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!’”
Reflection
Jesus was talking to a father, desperate to help his son, who had been unwell since childhood. Nothing that the father had tried had been able to make his child better. When this father had heard that the miracle-working man everyone was talking about was in his town, he had come running. Envisioning this scripture, one could see this father running from his house, down the stone streets towards the crowd, his boy in tow. Nothing was going to stop this type of determination.
The father pushed through the crowd, wanting and hoping that his son would be the subject of the next miracle. But the crowd was so large, and so many people wanted to be healed, how was he to get to Jesus? The father decided to settle for requesting the help of Jesus’s disciples. Finally making it to the disciples, one can only imagine the anticipation. Watching with a renewed sense of hope as the disciples prayed over the boy. But then, the unimaginable heartbreak, and, once again, doubt, that his son would ever be cured, when Jesus’ own disciples found themselves unable to perform the miracle.
We all can relate to the father. Wanting to believe there is something better in times of hardship, but feeling the doubt seeping into our hearts. Seeing the obstacle in front of us, and not knowing how it can be overcome. Especially when society or modern medicine is telling us what we are hoping for is impossible.
The father was no stranger to the doubt that we all experience in our hearts. When Jesus asked him to believe, He knew that there was doubt. Jesus was really saying, “All things are possible for God. Have you forgotten that?” When the father cried with tears in his eyes, “Help my unbelief!” He was crying to God to give him the capacity to believe in the miracle that no one he met had been able to believe in either. And that day, God performed two miracles. He vanquished the doubt in the father and the sickness in the son. May we remember that, in prayer, nothing is too big for God. Sometimes, we just need to ask.
Prayer
Our Father in Heaven, who is capable of all things, we relinquish our hearts into your hands. We are no stranger to doubt, and no stranger to fear. May we recognize that your power begins where our capabilities end. Help our unbelief. Help us to remember that when we can’t see beyond our doubts, it is because your plan is more beautiful than we can imagine. Amen.