There was a moment the other day when, as I was talking about trusting God with my plans for my career, I said, “I do believe that God has this plan for me, but I’m just afraid of being wrong”. And then I thought wait, what? If I truly know that this is God’s plan for me, then being wrong about that isn’t even on the table! And this isn’t the first time lately that I have felt so strongly about God calling me towards or assuring me of something, and then later began to second guess it. I’ll find myself thinking No, you must have been wrong about that. You won’t be good enough to do it. That couldn’t be God’s plan for you.
Of course, I want to be flexible and be at peace with life taking different directions than what I may expect. But, when I feel that God is confirming and giving me peace about a particular situation or decision, there should be no room in my mind for any doubt that He will make it happen. Even if things don’t go the exact way I anticipated or hoped for, I will never be wrong about trusting God’s guidance.
In the past I haven’t always recognized just how much it can hurt me to have unbelief in my heart; that’s something God’s been teaching me lately. When I doubt God’s promises or His willingness to care for me, I disregard what I know to be true about Him. He cannot go back on His word, so when He says that He loves me and has good in store for me, He means it. Unbelief does nothing but keep me from living fully in His will and from getting to be a part of His plans.
In Mark 9, we read that a man brought his son to Jesus. The son had been plagued by demonic activity for years, and no one, not even Jesus’ disciples, could rescue him from it. Finally, the man came to Jesus in desperation, pleading, “If You can do anything, take pity on us and help us!” to which Jesus replied “If You can? All things are possible for the one who believes”. The father then cried, “I do believe; help my unbelief!”
In saying this phrase, he gave himself over to the Lord’s will. I love how up front and honest he was with Jesus. He didn’t pretend to have it all together or sweep his doubts under the rug. Instead, he brought it all to Jesus – unashamedly claiming both his desire to believe and his struggle to do so. He asked Jesus to help him believe, and Jesus did.
In this story we see that the man’s past disappointments, or fears, or skepticism, or whatever it was that was making it hard for him to believe, did not lessen what Jesus was able do. And in the same way, when we offer our weaknesses to God in humility and honesty, He readily takes them upon Himself, and they hold no sway over His plans.
There was a time when I felt like I had to power through my doubts and insecurities if I was going to be a “good Christian”. But God knows what’s in my heart already – He knows about my weaknesses as well as my desire to trust Him. So, there’s no point in trying to ignore or hide my unbelief; God already sees it and wants to help me overcome it through His grace.
When I try to pretend my doubts don’t exist, I risk allowing them to hinder my obedience to God as I try to wrestle with them on my own. But when I humbly acknowledge to God my struggle to believe, and I ask Him to reassure and strengthen my heart, He is faithful to do so.
So, if we want to believe whatever God is showing us, but we’re struggling to get to that place of full faith, we can simply ask Him to help us and to give us the ability to trust Him. Whether we’re trying to stay on track, or to take the first step, or just to believe that God has a good plan waiting for us, He is with us every step of the way, ready to guide us if we let Him.
We do believe, Lord. Help our unbelief.
Related Scripture
Mark 9:17-29
And one person from the crowd answered Him, “Teacher, I brought You my son, because he has a spirit that makes him unable to speak and whenever it seizes him, it slams him to the ground, and he foams at the mouth and grinds his teeth and becomes stiff. And I told Your disciples so that they would cast it out, but they could not do it”…And He asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood. It has often thrown him both into the fire and into the water to kill him. But if You can do anything, take pity on us and help us!” But Jesus said to him, “‘If You can?’ All things are possible for the one who believes.” Immediately the boy’s father cried out and said, “I do believe; help my unbelief!” When Jesus saw that a crowd was rapidly gathering, He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and do not enter him again!” And after crying out and throwing him into terrible convulsions, it came out; and the boy became so much like a corpse that most of them said, “He is dead!” But Jesus took him by the hand and raised him, and he got up. When He came into the house, His disciples began asking Him privately, “Why is it that we could not cast it out?” And He said to them, “This kind cannot come out by anything except prayer.”
The Girl that Jesus Loved 