I remain untitled

A seed of faith

S: Matthew 17: 14-20

The Healing of a Boy with a Demon

 14 When they came to the crowd, a man approached Jesus and knelt before him. 15 “Lord, have mercy on my son,” he said. “He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. 16 I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him.”

 17 “O unbelieving and perverse generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.” 18 Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed from that moment.

 19 Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?”

 20 He replied, “Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

O: Again, Jesus is in a position to help someone in need. A man brought his son to the disciples for help but they could not heal his son. But when the boy was taken to Jesus, the boy was healed. I think it’s interesting that the disciples asked why they were unable to heal the boy. Jesus said it was because they had so little faith. Faith in what? I thought about that for a second and looked up the definition of faith.

faith   
–noun
1.confidence or trust in a person or thing: faith in another’s ability.

I googled mustard seed and came across a wikipedia page about it. Evidently a mustard seed is about 1mm in diameter. 

1 millimeter = 0.0393700787 inches

As I think over this passage and read what others have said, I’m learning that Jesus wasn’t necessarily concerned with the quantity of the disciples’ faith but the quality of their faith. Faith of good quality is faith without doubt. They didn’t need a lot of it, they just needed faith that was pure. My pastor tells us all the time, “Pray like it depends on God. Work like it depends on you.” In this instance, I believe no amount of work would have healed that boy. The disciples needed to pray like it truly depended on God.

A: I need to learn how to pray like it depends on God. Sometimes I throw my prayers out there hoping that God hears me and will entertain the idea, kind of like throwing darts at a dart board hoping to hit the bulls-eye. I don’t think it’s supposed to work that way. Rather, I should be relying on the Holy Spirit to lead me and honestly believe that God can do anything.

P: God, please help me to pray like it depends on you because it does. Amen.