How Do We Grow Our Faith?

God desires trust from us because He created all things. His omnipotence, or the ability to do all things, demands trust. That sounds like a bold statement, but think about it this way: to deny that the sun rises each day doesn’t mean that it doesn’t rise. Even if someone wanted to deny it, they’d still be trusting that it did because they’d live their life in the sunlight.

What the father lacked here is something we all struggle with from time to time: entrusting our current life season/situation/relationship to Christ. We, like this father, struggle with the concept of understanding that He is all-powerful, sovereign and good. But when we do believe that Christ is both able to do all, is sovereign above all and is also good, we believe in Him to do whatever He sees fit.

This is much easier said than done, of course! Thankfully, Jesus shows us a way to work through this process of trusting: prayer. The next verse shows us our next step when we find ourselves here. “Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24). I love that Scripture tells us he “immediately” spoke to Jesus.

What a wonderful reminder for us, friends! He did not turn away angrily from Jesus.  He did not give up. He did not distract himself with something. If I might be so bold, I might also add that he didn’t start googling “how to heal…” or go check his social media account for the millionth time to see if anyone else had any better ideas.

He turned to Jesus.

He asked for increased faith.

Friends, this is what our response needs to be when we come to Jesus and He does not meet us like we think he should. Even in our confusion, we have the opportunity in these circumstances to keep returning to the Lord. We can ask him to increase our faith. When we do this, the Lord shows himself to be who he always has been: all-powerful, sovereign and good.

In these moments when he inevitably shows up faithfully (like He always does) we can praise him. We pray this week as we memorize this verse together that we are reminded of all the times the Lord showed himself to be worthy of our belief, friends!