Lord, Give Me Faith

One of the biggest problems for anyone coming to Christ is the problem of faith. How do I get it? What is it really like? What can I expect to happen in my life if I have faith? Is it a matter of how much faith I have or is it a matter of the quality of my faith? Remember the man who came to Jesus to ask why the disciples couldn’t cast out the demon that left the man’s son mute? He asked Jesus if He could do anything to help. Jesus replied, "If you can! All things are possible for one who believes." (Mark 9:23, ESV) The man in desperation cried out and said, "I believe; help my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24, ESV) I think that is the feeling of most of us in life. I believe. Lord, help the part of me that has trouble believing! How is it possible to have a stronger faith, a deeper faith, a faith that cannot be shaken, no matter what may come in life?
The man with the son that Jesus cured believed in One God. Every good Jewish person could quote what Moses had written in Deuteronomy, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.” (Deuteronomy 6:4, ESV) For New Testament Christians, to believe that God is One and that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit seems pretty common. Even when we meet a severe crisis in life, most of us are still able to say that we believe in God and that His will, His purpose for our lives, will be done. We can look back at some pretty rough places in life and see where God has helped us, has given us the strength to go on, even done some pretty remarkable things in our lives.
But what about the long periods of silence, when it seems God isn’t listening to my prayers, when the problem that I am faced with just doesn’t resolve itself, when even year after agonizing year, I just seem stuck in a rut. No solutions, no miracles, no quick response. In the story above, I wonder how long the father had watched helplessly as his son suffered from the demon, the demon who made his son mute, who threw him in the fire or the water, trying to kill the boy? Surely that father prayed and asked God for deliverance for his son. When we read the pages of the Old Testament, we find men and women who prayed for long periods of time before they heard an answer from God. Think of Hannah who prayed long and hard for a son, who suffered the abuse of ridicule because she couldn’t have a child, and who was even accused of being drunk when she went up to the house of the Lord and continued to pray. “Hannah was speaking in her heart; only her lips moved, and her voice was not heard. Therefore Eli took her to be a drunken woman.”(I Samuel 1:13, ESV) We are even told that Hannah wept bitterly because of her plight.
Or what about the times when we just know that God has given us a great victory, especially when we have helped others, only to be followed by personal hardship. Elijah was just such a person. After praying that it wouldn’t rain on the earth and seeing God withhold rain for three years, after a great victory over the prophets of Baal, after praying and waiting on the Lord and seeing God send rain again, even after being filled with God’s spirit and outrunning Ahab, who was riding in a chariot, Elijah heard that Jezebel wanted him dead, so he ran away and wanted to die. He gave up. God had to show Elijah that He doesn’t always operate in the spectacular. Much of the time God is in the whisper of a breeze, gently urging us on, knowing that we will come through with a stronger faith than we had before, and then be able to serve Him again. (I Kings 19:1-14)
Next post I would like to take this subject a bit further, to look into some aspects of faith that can help us to grow in Christ, to have a faith that really can’t be shaken. Once we establish the importance of such a faith, we can then look at some things that are to be added to that faith.