Help My Unbelief

Mark 9:23-24 (NRSV)

"Jesus said to him, 'If you are able! — All things can be done for the one who believes.' Immediately the father of the child cried out, 'I believe; help my unbelief!'"

Honestly, this is my favorite prayer in the Bible. Not because it's the most eloquent, or the most theologically precise. Because it's the most true.

"I believe; help my unbelief."

Seven words that hold the whole complicated reality of what faith actually feels like from the inside — at least for me. Not the version we think we're supposed to have. The real thing. The version that shows up at two in the morning when the problem is real, and the prayer I've been praying for years still hasn't been answered.

I believe. And also — I'm not sure. Both things, at the same time, in the same breath.

This father has been watching his son suffer since childhood. Seizures. Falls into fire, into water. Years of this. He came to Jesus's disciples first, and they couldn't help. So by the time Jesus arrives, this man's faith has been through things that would test anyone's. When he says "if you can do anything," that if is doing a lot of work. It's not the language of someone standing on solid ground. It's the language of someone who has hoped before and learned to be careful about hoping.

And Jesus doesn't rebuke him for the if. Doesn't send him away to shore up his faith before coming back. He heals the boy.

What gets me about this story is that the man's prayer is essentially an admission of failure. By every standard of confident, mountain-moving faith, he's falling short. He knows it. He says so out loud, right there in front of Jesus.

And that turns out to be exactly the right thing to say.

I think about all the times I've stayed quiet in prayer because I didn't feel certain enough. All the times I've dressed up my doubts in more acceptable language because I was afraid that bringing my actual faith — small and mixed and honest as it is — wouldn't be enough. As if Jesus needed me to perform certainty before he could work.

This father didn't perform anything. He just told the truth.

Maybe that's what faith actually looks like most of the time. Not a feeling of absolute certainty. Not the absence of doubt. Just the honesty to say out loud what's actually true — I believe this, but I'm not sure I believe it enough. And somehow, in this story, that admission is the very thing Jesus works with.

Jesus doesn't fill up the father's faith like a tank running low. He responds to the father's honesty. That's a different kind of grace entirely — one that meets us in our transparency rather than waiting for our certainty.

And that prayer has never been turned away. Ever.

Prayer

Lord, we believe. Help our unbelief. We don't bring you our certainty — we rarely have enough. We bring you the truth about where we actually are. Meet us there. Amen.

This devotional was written and read by Cliff McCartney.

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