I BELIEVE, HELP MY UNBELIEF

¹⁷ A man in the crowd answered, “Teacher, I brought you my son, who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech. ¹⁸ Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive out the spirit, but they could not.”

¹⁹ “You unbelieving generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy to me.”

²⁰ So they brought him. When the spirit saw Jesus, it immediately threw the boy into a convulsion. He fell to the ground and rolled around, foaming at the mouth.

²¹ Jesus asked the boy’s father, “How long has he been like this?”

“From childhood,” he answered. ²² “It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.”

²³ “‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for one who believes.”

²⁴ Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

²⁵ When Jesus saw that a crowd was running to the scene, he rebuked the impure spirit. “You deaf and mute spirit,” he said, “I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.”

Many of us who were brought up in the Charismatic and Pentecostal stream of things have been taught a Christianity with an overtly unhealthy fixation on our faith. In the midst of all the good that came with believing that God actually still worked miracles; he still healed, he stilled provided financially and he still casts out demons, a little error crept in. We placed too much emphasis on how strong the individual’s belief is.  We are constantly reminded to be strong in faith. That we should not waver in our belief that this miracle or healing will happen. If it doesn’t happen, it simply means there is something wrong with us.

To me, this has built an unhealthy fixation on faith amongst Christians. We are more concerned with how much faith we display than in the goodness of God. It is a subtle reversal to the works mentality that is prevalent in most human religion and we allowed it to creep it in because we all love to boast about what we have done to earn the blessing. In this case, we have believed properly and unwaveringly.

Don’t get me wrong, I do agree that the belief and assent of the believer is key to living and enjoying the relationship with God. But I believe that Faith is a natural response to the goodness of God. We are not saved by Faith, we are saved by Grace. Faith is what happens when we find out what God has done for us. it is the hallelujah we scream when we think of the goodness of God to us through his Son. It is the smile on people’s faces, the feeling of relief and joy that I see in people when they dare to believe that God is actually better than they think.

Nevertheless, there is an ebb and flow with regards to our faith. Sometimes we believe strongly, other times the circumstances are so overwhelming, we forget that God is bigger than the challenge and he is actually on our side. When the rubber meets the road, there are times when we forget who we are; beloved children of the most high God.

This is where the beauty of the Gospel lies. It was never dependent on our faith. Our faith did not save us and it does not sustain us. Even in times when we are unsure and full of doubt, Jesus has no doubt. Consider the passage above, the man believed in Jesus enough to bring his son to Jesus for healing, but even then, he still had doubts. That did not stop Jesus from doing what he wanted to do. Because he is a healer, he is Love. The cry of the man for Jesus to help his unbelief is the cry of humanity. It is apt because that is exactly part of what Jesus does for us in his vicarious humanity. He takes our feeble attempts at faith, repentance, and worship and presents it alongside his perfect representation of these things before the Father. At the end of the day we are all people screaming “I believe, help my unbelief”

The result of this is simple, we do not need to examine the level of our faith (the epistles advise us to examine if we are still in the Faith and not to examine how strong our faith is) but to continually trust in the one who can perfect our faith, however big or small. We are also to trust that he is always on our side, even when we seem unsure, he will always help our unbelief. When you do that, your focus goes back to him and God sees you in your faith

Thinking Communally

A few things have changed the course of my life forever and affected the way I think and live. The first is that God is Love. I have always known this; people preach it all the time. Mostly to berate us for not loving enough. But I’ve come to take this statement very seriously and to actually believe that God is all Love (not God is love and…. Or God is love, but…) everything about God stems from this nature of Love. Therefore, God does not engage in nor endorse actions that are not of love.

The second thing I learnt is that God is a community. This blew my mind. I did not know this before I got introduced to Trinitarian Theology. God is Father, Son and Spirit. Before anything was made, before space, before time, there existed a community in the Godhead. That community whose very constitution and nature is love decided to create a world in order to have a community of folks they can share this love with. They enjoyed each other so much that the idea came to them; “let’s make people that can enjoy this too”

This realization led me to only one conclusion. This Universe is built for Love and community. The God who is community can only design a world of community. Sin is the thing that pushes us to be more and more insular and self-centered. This is why the Church is a community, not a group of individuals that meet every week to learn how to better their personal lives. As much as it is important for us to know God personally and to realize that we house the Holy Spirit in our bodies, we cannot discount the need for brothers and sisters who we love and love us, and who can share their experiences and revelation in order to help us grow in our walk with God and for whom we do the same too. Our faith is very personal, no doubt, but it is also very communal. We cannot have one without the other.

It also means that people are more important than institutions and empires. Building a Trinitarian community involves a totally different set of dynamics from building a business or a religious institution. This is a community based on love and equality of all. It is based on people laying down their lives for each other as opposed to a power struggle. God’s vision is for a world filled with people who Love each other like that, from whole communities down to the family structure. We are not enemies of each other, or competitors in a game of money and resources, we are supposed to be partners in building the Kingdom of God

This, to me, is one of the major reasons for the inequalities, wars and degradation of the earth. We are not living according to the design of the universe; Love and Community. Hence, the results we see. When people, families and whole nations choose to ignore this way of life, it only leads to chaos and lopsidedness. This is a call for us all. Let’s follow the Holy Spirit as he leads us to live with this truth in mind. Let these truths influence your interactions and lead us to making the world a better place and a Godly life. To do otherwise is to swim against the tide of the Universe and to experience the pain that comes along with that.