Belief, Unbelief and Faith

Hold on folks…It’s going to be a bumpy ride!

We all have those things that we want to believe;

“ECU Pirate football will be better this year”… that is pretty much my genuine belief every year heading into football season. Have the last 5-6 seasons given me any indication that this will be true? NO!

I have suffered disappointment in the team and alma mater that I love, year after year, loss after disappointing loss. Each game, though, I put on my belief that they CAN win, and root for them until the outcome of the game has been decided. Rarely do I pre-determine the outcome of the game prior to them playing. Why is that? How can I continue to support a team in the face of repetitive disappointment?

I remember.

I remember what it was like to watch ECU win 11 straight games, most of them were come from behind victories in the 4th quarter. I remember sitting in the stands and cheering so hard, along with 30k other fans. The stadium was packed, and the noise level was actually deafening. The excitement was for the comeback, the motto for the year, ‘we believe’. As the 4th quarter would roll around and we would be losing, you would hear the crowd chanting, ‘we believe’.

That got down in my soul… I cannot get away from it. It is a part of my belief system. My kids think I am crazy for believing in the Pirates the way I do, the past couple of years, they have doubted… and with good reason.

But, they haven’t seen what I have seen. They don’t have a reference of success and grit and determination from the past. They don’t have the memory of watching victory being snatched from the jaws of defeat time after time.

But I do.

I remember.

I tell them of the past. I tell them of certain defeat, that was reversed off of sheer will. I know they get tired of hearing it, but I want them to know. I want them to believe. I don’t want them to forget the heritage of Pirate football. People can make fun of my passion and loyalty to a team that seemingly does not deserve it, and it is OK. Doesn’t bother me… I Believe!

There is a story that I recall about belief and unbelief, and how it is linked to faith and a testimony. This story is in the Bible. I know I may have just lost some of you, but hold on to the end.

The book of Mark (In the New Testament) chapter 9. we pick up on a story of a father who brings his son to Jesus to be healed. His son has seizures and is mute. The father describes of how his son’s life is in danger because these seizures happen at terrible times, which cause him injury. As a parent, I can only imagine how scary this would be. The father had brought his son to the disciples ( Jesus had followers that He had empowered to heal the sick, and did), to heal him, but they were unable.

So here is the father with his son, standing before Jesus and the father says to Jesus… “But if You can do anything, take pity on us and help us!”

Jesus said to him, “ ‘If You can?’ All things are possible to him who believes.”  Immediately the boy’s father cried out and said, “I do believe; help my unbelief.”

I believe, Help my unbelief.

Such a powerful statement. Dripping with truth and desperation. The father of the boy had probably taken his son to doctors and the priests and anyone he thought could help his son get well. None of them worked. He even heard of a man named Jesus who healed the sick and had disciples that were doing the same. But the disciples were unable to help him. You see, the man had hope and could not give up on the belief that his son could be made well.

“I believe”

Yet, time after time, he had been disappointed. exhausting his resources to see his son well and had nothing to show for it but a son that continued to have seizures and had to be watched all the time. He was caught in the middle of wanting to believe his son could be made whole (I believe) and the reality that no one had been able to help him (unbelief).

In the moment, Jesus asks the father the rhetorical question of, “If you can?” (the father had said, if you can heal my son). Jesus was not insulted at all. Jesus was not mad at him. Jesus was not asking the question to shame him.

You see, I think this man had not seen anyone with his son’s condition healed. He had no point of reference of this type of healing. Jesus’s question was bringing the father into the realm of possibilities that the father had no experience for…but Jesus did.

Remember Pirate football. ‘I believe’, something I say when watching the Pirates. Why do I say that? to convince myself? NO, I am already convinced. I say it to encourage those around me, to offer them some faith and belief. To give them a point of reference that they do not possess, in an effort to offset their ‘unbelief’

How often I come to God with a need, whether it be physical, emotional or spiritual. I don’t always have the experiential knowledge that He can/will heal/help me. But I believe anyway. You see, I have to remember how God has helped me at other times and in other circumstances. I go to the Bible, where there are stories of real people who lived and made mistakes and yet, found God would act on their behalf.

Someone’s testimony can help me walk through something with renewed faith, faith that I did not have a second before hearing their testimony. The Bible is full of testimonies of God moving in the miraculous.

They are yours to read. They are yours to believe.

Revelation 19:10 …For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

Do you not have the faith to believe God can do something on your behalf? Find someone’s testimony that will give you the faith to believe. Borrow their story to remind God, ‘Hey, you did this for this person, so I know you can, now I am asking you do it for me”

I have recently been struggling with some emotional baggage from 48 years of living, LOL. I have been dancing around some of the same feelings for many, many years. I had almost given up hope that I could be free from this type of thinking, until I decided to look for people that had maybe the same experience and God was able to do something in their life that changed it all.

Guess what, I found some. I began to listen to them, I began to be inspired by their story and how God brought them out of it. It gave me faith to believe again and trust God COULD!

You want to believe, but you have all this unbelief (life experience) that says it will always be the same and their is no help. Please hear me, there is a God in heaven who wants to help you. I simply offer you a new point of view that suggests it is hard to believe God when you have all this experience that says ‘He will let you down like everybody else’. I promise you, there is a testimony out there that somebody has that will give you the courage to believe again. I pray that God would help you find it, find renewed hope and find that God, if no one else, is trustworthy.

If He did it for them, He will do it for you!