To know you is to trust you,Yahweh.
You don’t walk away from those who run to you.
(Everyday Psalms, Psalm 9, page20)
I pray myself into belief. Everyone who prays does. Prayer creates faith where none existed before, enhances faith where it was small before.
Ronald Rolheiser notes that whenever someone tells him they don’t believe in God, he asks them to pray for six months. The prayers don’t have to be long and can even be prayers that say, “Hi God. You know I don’t believe in you, but here I am praying anyway. It’d be nice to have a good day today, especially for my family and friends.” After six months of simply praying every day, almost everyone prays themselves into belief. Likewise, refusal to pray is the easiest way to walk away from belief.
Because of this, a prayer we come back to over and over again in our lives of wavering faith is captured in the words of the father whose son kept throwing himself into a fire to harm himself. He said to Jesus, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24)
I don’t call this doubt so much as I call it conflicted belief. As the father says, he does believe. I don’t question that belief. He’s there talking with Jesus after all. But the struggles of life have him struggling with his belief, particularly the struggles of a father who watches helplessly as his son engages in self-harm. It doesn’t really matter whether the son is demonized or not in many regards. No matter the cause, it’s hellish for a parent to watch a child self-destruct. It rips at the roots of reality, questioning the goodness of the world and the goodness of God.
So like this father, we come to Jesus, confessing our belief and confessing our unbelief at the same time. And in that moment, we hear the words of Jesus spoken elsewhere in the Gospels,“Let not your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me” (John 14:1).
And so we pray not just because we believe, but so that we might believe. Both. At the same time.
Prayer: Jesus, I’m here talking with you now because I believe in you. You are good. But this world isn’t so good to me at times. And I begin to question you and your goodness. I’m so conflicted at times! I’m so filled with unbelief at times. I don’t like being of two minds, but that’s where I’m at and what I have to offer. So take both my belief and my unbelief and help me. Support my feeble faith. Act in the world in ways that show you really are good. I believe in you. Amen.