“I believe. Help my unbelief.” I love that phrase from the father in that story. I think that is such an incredibly important piece of scripture, because it’s such an incredibly vulnerable thing for the father to say. He knows he is supposed to believe. He knows he is supposed to live it out. And he knows that, or at least assumes that, if he doesn’t believe that his son won’t be healed, and he desperately wants that for his son. Needs it for his son. You can hear his desperation even two thousand years later, “if you are able to do anything, have pity on us and help us,” he implores Jesus. And Jesus, sort of incredulously replies, “‘If you are able!—All things can be done for the one who believes.’ Immediately, the father cries out, immediately, such a key word there, ‘I believe; help my unbelief!’ I believe, help my unbelief. Have you been there? I certainly have. I don’t know that I have necessarily voiced it out loud, at least not about the important things, but I’ve been there. I believe, help my unbelief.
What I’ve always wondered in hearing this story, though, is what had the disciples who the father originally brought his son to been doing? How were they trying to help him? Whatever it was that they were doing, it obviously didn’t work, which makes Jesus statement about having to put up with this faithless generation even more striking. Were their efforts unhelpful because they didn’t believe, or because they were faithless? Or was it something more? And of course when they later ask Jesus why they couldn’t heal the boy, Jesus says “This kind can come out only through prayer.” So at least, presumably they had not been engaged in prayer, but was that really the overall difference? If they had simply prayed would they have brought a cure? Or was it something more? Something deeper? Something more faithful? I believe. Help my unbelief.
