"I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!"It wasn’t that he was guilty of losing his faith - that’s not what the father meant when he used the word ‘unbelief’ - simply that there was a moment when the faith that he had was not strong enough to cope with the crisis that he faced.
Even men we would have thought of as being capable of anything that Jesus had asked them to do, could at times be faced with times in their life where their faith was seemingly not up to the task.
I would imagine of course they’re in good company, if we only stop to think about our own lives - at least speaking from my own experience.
Listen to this description of a person faced with a not dissimilar moment in their life, and perhaps try and guess who it might be. Returning to this country by boat after a time away in America on a mission to the native Indians, he found himself depressed, frightened by the storms through which the boat passed and prone to periods of despondency. He tried to share the gospel with others on board, but found that he just couldn’t find the words to say. He wondered if it was God’s will that he should remain silent or whether it was the work of the devil. As the storms got worse he found to his dismay that he was still afraid of dying. And though he could usually say with confidence ‘Verily, if the gospel be true, I am safe.’
In the storm he began to think ‘What if the gospel be not true?’ What if he’d surrendered all - friends, repute, country, life - for a mere dream?
‘I have a fair summer religion’ he wrote in bitter self-criticism, and convicted himself ‘of unbelief... of pride.... of levity and luxuriancy of spirit.’
I could go on, but we’d probably end up as depressed as John Wesley was in that difficult period of his life. ‘Oh!’ he groaned with despair, ‘I went to America to convert the Indians; but who shall convert me?’
Yes, this is John Wesley I’m talking about. It’s maybe not the picture of John Wesley that comes to mind when we think about the origins of our denomination. We would prefer to think of the powerful and charismatic preacher travelling the byways of this country on horseback and sharing an uncompromising gospel message to the crowds that flocked to hear him.
But is John Wesley’s experience any different to that of the disciples in our gospel reading? Yes, here was an educated and enthusiastic follower of Jesus, empowered for a mission and suffering a moment when faith somehow seemed weak. Fortunately for Wesley and for us, he was able to come to terms with the situation he found himself in, to rise above it with the help of others, and to continue his work for the Lord.
Let me also share with you a moment in the life of another great man, and this time I’ll tell you who it was - Martin Luther. He was born in Germany in 1483 and after gaining a brilliant degree in Law realised that his true vocation was within the cloisters of an Augustinian monastery. He was more than enthusiastic in the way he followed the monastic life, and in following all the ways taught to a monk to find God: the mystic way of prayer, the practical discipline of good works, the intellectual path of reason. But Martin Luther went through agonies of stress when he found that the more diligently he pursued the known methods of spiritual growth, the further God seemed away from him.
It was at this moment of spiritual weakness that the great and basic truth of Christianity was shown to him: that it wasn’t God that was far off and men and women had to do everything they possibly could to gain his favour, but more importantly and simply that it was man that had distanced himself from God, through sin and being self-centred, and that God had, through Jesus come all the way to find us. As Luther expressed it, ‘the doors of paradise were flung open to me, and I entered.’
What Luther did was to put the spotlight back onto Jesus, to set him in the centre rather than self. And where is Jesus if not at the centre of our faith?
Luther’s circumstances were different than those of John Wesley. He was finding his faith within a system which, to put it mildly had lost its way. And came to the inevitable conclusion that at the heart of Christianity is Christ. All the other parafinalia and ritual with which his life was surrounded was a distraction which had dragged him into despair. The faith that he undoubtedly had was seemingly unable to deal with the situation that he found himself in, and it was only when his anguished prayer was met with the love of Jesus that he was able to literally see the light.
In the bible there is hardly a word richer in meaning than the word ‘faith’. If you have faith in someone then you trust in that person’s character, and it’s exactly the same in the bible - faith rests in the character of God; he keeps his promises, and can be trusted.
The basis of New Testament faith is the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. If people ‘believe’ in Jesus then that belief is based on what Jesus has done for them. Which of course means that our faith is response - what comes first is God’s steadfast and enduring love for his creation.
Faith, then, is our response of trust to what God has done, and that response is one of commitment, trusting ourselves to him in the light of what he has revealed. A real faith will always result in a changed life.
The message I want to get across is a simple one. We all at times reach points in our lives where our faith just doesn’t seem up to the challenge. And what do we do when that happens - do we give up, persuade ourselves that God isn’t interested in little old me and sink into despair? Or are we like the father in our story, who humbly admitted that the faith he had was weak. Because where faith is weak, Jesus draws near and helps those who call out to him.
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