Life-spark: Be honest with God about your unbelief – John 2:23-25
When I was about eight, my parent took me water skiing. They told me to hold on tight to the ski line. No one told me to let go of the rope if I fell. I fell. I held on and plowed through the water until the boat finally stopped.
Ten years later, I found myself holding on for dear life again. I had turned away from God in high school, and came to disbelieve the claims of Jesus. My senior year in High School, I began to sense an ever increasing vacuum in my soul. I didn’t want to become a Christian, but I did want to believe in God again. I decided to try reading the Bible. It seemed dry and dead. Empty and sad, I finally came to the point where I was truly ready to surrender my life to God, if there was a God.
So I sat in my bedroom and prayed something like this. “Dear God, I’m full of doubt and disbelief. I pretty much feel like you don’t exist, but I wish you did. If you are there and you do hear me, I want to go on record with you. I present my life to you one hundred percent, and I only ask one thing of you. Just let me know you are real.”
For the next six months I wavered between belief and unbelief. I held onto the spiritual ski rope for dear life. Jesus revealed Himself to me over time (signs of life), and slowly my faith grew. Like others before me, I saw signs of His reality and began to believe in His name. Now while He was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many people saw the miraculous signs He was doing and believed in His name. But Jesus would not entrust Himself to them, for He knew all men. John 20:23-25, NIV
Like those people in Jerusalem at the feast, I had very little faith. The Lord knew that. He knew me from the inside out.
That was forty-five years ago. As I held onto His words I began to trust Him more, and I think He began to trust me more. Although I still have struggles, my faith has grown stronger month by month and year by year.
I have a long way to go. I often find myself saying to Christ what a man in the Bible said, “I believe, please help my unbelief.” He does. I’ve found that God is quick to respond to my sincere plea for stronger faith.
Life-question: Think of one area in your life where you can say to the Lord, “Please help my unbelief.” Do it. He loves that prayer and He will answer. Would you be bold enough to share your prayer with me or someone else?