I believe, help me in my Unbelief
The classic cry!
A friend recently let me know that while channel flipping, she discovered this sermon on “worrying our prayers” by TV pastor Joel Olsteen
Instead of "worrying our prayers" and repeatedly asking and asking the same thing over and over again, this pastor encourages us to ask God once, and take God at His word - giving prayers of thanksgiving that God is great and hears our prayers from that point forward, even if things look impossible like in the case of David facing Goliath and Jonah in the whale and when the answers take years to manifest like in the case of Sarah and Abraham.
It came to me that I too "worry my prayers" i.e. I bring before God a running commentary of what I am worried about. But I wonder, wouldn’t it be too presumptious for me to pray “Hey God, I asked You last week that You would intervene in X and now I praise you that you are going to do just that!!”
It is one thing to pray for something, but isn’t it another to assume that God will carry out my request? Should I not rather be open that God’s ANSWER, is not MY REQUEST but MY ATTITUDE toward X problem?
How then should I pray?
A possible answer comes to us from the father of the boy described in Mark 9:
“I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”
Jesus Heals a Boy Possessed by an Impure Spirit
14 When they came to the other disciples, they saw a large crowd around them and the teachers of the law arguing with them. 15 As soon as all the people saw Jesus, they were overwhelmed with wonder and ran to greet him.
16 “What are you arguing with them about?” he asked.
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.”
26 The spirit shrieked, convulsed him violently and came out. The boy looked so much like a corpse that many said, “He’s dead.” 27 But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him to his feet, and he stood up.
28 After Jesus had gone indoors, his disciples asked him privately,“Why couldn’t we drive it out?”
29 He replied, “This kind can come out only by prayer.[a]”
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My old German heirloom book* from 1916 picked up on the story of this boy and his father. What follows is my rough translation into English.
Jesus said: “If you could believe. All things are possible for those who believe.” Upon that the father of the child yelled: “I believe, dear Lord, help my unbelief!”
From the mountain of the transfiguration, Jesus’ story continues in the midst of human suffering. There was a poor boy, clearly epileptic, whose seizures were distressing to behold. No one could offer any help. Even Jesus’ disciples stood and watched helplessly. Without their Master, they could do nothing.
The father of the boy turned to the Lord, with a mixture of reproach and confidence. All heard Jesus’ powerful words: “All things are possible for him who believes.” Here we have the secret of success. A blessed life is a life of faith. Docile, pious wishes are not enough. We need to DARE to believe - to grab onto the promise. Our entire lives involve withdrawal from and piercing through a current state of disbelief, to arrive at a state of absolute confidence. In so doing, we find that much of what we thought was belief, is essentially disbelief. To simply trust that once upon a time, sometime IN THE PAST God performed wondrous acts, is that not a lack of belief? Or that sometime in the murky FUTURE in very specific circumstances, working through select extraordinary individuals, He will do great things again, is that not a lack of belief? We need to have belief also when it comes to our needs TODAY.
Almighty God, Your arm is not yet too short and Your hand is not yet too small, You will permit us to see Your wondrous works, just as You have permitted our forefathers to see, if we have faith. You do not want us to simply bemoan our adversities and complain about the misery around us. We believe, Lord, help our unbelief! Show us the point at which we need to take hold with confidence, so that we can do that which is Your will. Think of all those who suffer, in particular from afflictions such as epilepsy. Even today, You can carry out miracles with them. Help them to submit themselves to Your will in all situations, so that good things may come to them.
Amen
So how should we then pray, instead of worrying our prayers? We can start by admitting to ourselves and to God that our tendency is to hold on to our worries, to limit what we are willing to believe God can do, and that we need God’s help to let go of our Unbelief.
Over the centuries, song writers picked up on the the passionate cry “Lord, help my Unbelief.” A quick internet search provides me with such a variety I cannot limit myself to share just one here - so I am leaving you the choice.
There is Johann Sebastian Bach’s Cantata Ich glaube, lieber Herr, hilf meinem Unglauben BWV 109 performed by the Netherland Bach Society.
Longtime American Southern gospel and contemporary Christian singer/songwriter Bill Gaither sing/prays I Believe, Help Thou My Unbelief, something we can hum when asking for help as we walk into the unknown.
German speaking “Tobias” sings a timeless hymn by Paul Gerhardt, about submitting our paths and desires to God’s leadership, likely a song the 1916 era congregations would have sung, presented here on guitar. Befiehl du deine Wege und was dein Herze lenkt
Meanwhile in the English speaking world in the 1800s, longstanding church hymn writers like William Gadsby penned Help My Unbelief sung here by Red Mountain Music.
And two centuries later, the same cry continues to inspire prayers and songs, for example, Dustin Battle’s 2016 hymn Help My Unbelief.
An absolute humbling recording is this Tribute Song coming out of Sierra Leone in 2017. For a people suffering so much, prayers that God may help them in their unbelief resulted in this confident statement: Everytin go be OK.
May we all DARE to believe that. Dare to grab onto that promise. Maybe God’s answer is not in the actions we wish to see from Him. Maybe it is in His giving us the strength to carry on and in the growth that adversity works in us. May God give us the grace to continue believing, even in our unbelief!
Amen!
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*Abendsegen für die Christliche Familie von Professor Paul Wurster. Universitat Tuebingen. Verlag des Evangelischen Schriftvereins. Karlsruhe. 1916. Seite 54.