Mark 9:24 And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.
If you have been following along in my Posts from On The Potter’s Wheel you will recall that I had mentioned that God had shown me something from His Word that impacted, motivated and stuck with me throughout my entire adventure in Key West. Well today I want to expand on that and to give to you all what God put on my heart in hopes that it will impact, motivate and inspire you as it has me.
As I mentioned briefly in that Post and have written extensively in other Posts one of the most defining emotions that has shaped me over my life is Shame. It has been hardwired into my thoughts, emotions, reactions, self-esteem, just about every aspect of my life has been tainted and has come under the shadow of Shame. It is a battle I didn't realize I was in until recently, one that I was losing and one now that I am aware of and take every effort to meet head on daily. This battle, my realization that it exists and my effort to overcome it has been at the forefront of almost everything I have experienced in my transformation over the past year.
The thing that once kept me in bondage, living in the shadows and silence, has now become the engine of change to break free from it's grip and has produced the most growth and fundamental ideological shifts for positivity that I have experienced in my life thus far. As I write that out it has occurred to me just how amazing and often that God takes the things that are made to harm us and turns them into the thing that inspires and produces the most good in our lives. It reminds me of this verse that I read last night:
Gen 50:20 But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.
I was going to write an entire Post about that verse in the future but it has occurred to me that the theme of this verse is going to tie in perfectly to the other lesson God has spoken to me that I am leading into. So let's just keep this verse in our hearts and mind, and the idea that God is able to take things that we see or think or were made out to be bad, and turn them into our good.
So back to the thought I was starting with Shame. As I was preparing and thinking about going on the trip to Key West, as I mentioned in that other Post, I was being bombarded with the thought that I just wouldn't be able to do it. All these negative thoughts kept swirling around my head about how I would screw it all up, that I don't deserve to go, that others would think badly of me, on and on and on I can go. As these things started to rage in my mind, I retreated into what is becoming my go to pattern, which is to just take it all to the Lord.
As I began to pray about these things, the emotions and feelings I was enduring, whether or not I should go ect, my prayers lead to thoughts about Trusting God. Many many many times as I have been working on confronting my Shame and the swirl of negative thoughts and emotions that stem from it, I am brought back to the basics, that of Faith and Trust in God. My prayer and conversation with God continued and I eventually began to meditate and had my thoughts directed to this man we find in Mark 9. This man who had taken his possessed and sick child to the disciples in a desperate attempt to get him made well, only to be met with disappointment once again.
How heartbroken this man must have been, to hear about the miracles others were receiving from the disciples, seeing men healed, seeing people receive their sight, the mute speak, the deaf hear. The excitement he would have had on his journey to bring his son to the men that could finally save his son, to only have it all come crashing down. See in this instance the disciples couldn't cast out the demon, the disciples couldn't help the child, the disciples couldn't fix what was wrong and I can only imagine the heartache and pain the father had to be dealing with at that moment.
How shook his Faith must have been, he had to have been broken, angry, scared and I think if we are all honest we all have been in those places as well, at least I know I have been, many more times than I would like to admit. Then came Jesus. Man what an amazing sentence. What a powerful sentence those 3 little words are, then came Jesus. Take a moment and just dwell and reflect on that with me, then came Jesus!!!
Jesus approaches the man and the crowd and asks what the commotion is all about and the man explains to him about his child and how he brought him to the disciples but they were not able to help. Then Jesus tells them to bring the child to Him and asks/tells the father, if you can believe all things are possible to him that believes. And it was at this point that God opened my eyes to something I have never seen, to a mistake I was making for years whenever I would think of this story.
See I always read the next verse that is quoted above as I believe Lord FORGIVE ME for my unbelief. I have quoted that Scripture to myself so many times as FORGIVE ME, and as I was praying and thinking about this God clearly said, go read it again. And when I read it again, and saw it was HELP ME and not FORGIVE ME, everything changed for me in how I looked at it, how I looked at God, how I looked at my life. It was a revelation to me and I want to explain how and why.
See, as I have admitted, I have many times been where I feel that man must have been in my life, after bringing his child to the disciples. Where I couldn't understand why things were working how they were and then losing Faith. Starting to get upset, disappointed, frustrated, worried. And so often when I would feel this way I would find myself thinking of this verse and then thinking it was FORGIVE ME. Shame loves to take already bad and negative emotions and thinking and multiple them to just turn the knife in our hearts and backs.
I would find myself at a point where I was desperate and then think of this verse as FORGIVE ME and Shame would just pouce all over me. Look at you Justin you suck, how could you not believe, how could you be shaken in your Faith, you better ask for forgiveness because you are just so wrong and terrible to doubt or think the way you are. And as I was praying that night Shame was right there trying to tear me down, but God knew and so God showed me what that verse was really about.
The man didn't ask for FORGIVENESS for his unbelief and doubt, obviously I am not saying that doubt can't be sinful, however the facts are we are all human and every single one of us is going to go through times where we absolutely doubt God is there. If you say you don't, well I will declare you are either a liar or better than every single person in the Bible save Jesus. Everyone in the Bible is shown to express doubt at times, from Adam and Eve to Paul, in every instance of these people’s lives we can see they come across doubts in their belief in God.
However God doesn't want to beat us up for our doubts, and I have always condemned myself, really let myself have it, time and again when I have found myself doubting God. That is why I was always reading FORGIVE ME in that verse, but that is NOT what it says. It says HELP ME in my unbelief. It was like a light bulb went off when I read that again with the Holy Spirit opening my eyes to it. God isn't here to punish us for our unbelief, God wants to HELP US when we come to that place where we are lacking Faith and Belief.
God clearly spoke to me and said Justin I am not here to condemn you for the times you lack Belief, instead I want to help you to have a deeper Faith and Belief in me. I am going to do that for you, I am going to HELP you achieve a deeper and more real Faith and Belief in me. Then He began to take me back through my life, in the many times over the past 5 or so years where I have found myself at those places where I was lacking belief, and He began to show me clearly how He was there and how they were leading up to where I was at that exact moment in my life.
As I stated I was on the verge of heading to Key West, that is the exact position I was in, full of fear and doubt, then came Jesus. Those 3 wonderful words, then came Jesus. If you have read or watched my testimonies you will know that my mother died of Cancer and from there God brought me to my Church. It was one of if not the worst places I had been in my Faith when my mom died, and then God turned it into something amazing by bringing me in a miraculous fashion to my Church.
However shortly after I came to my Church, when I was more on fire for Jesus than I had been in years, I lost my job. Oof another time of massive doubt, shortly afterward I came to work at Cincinnati Bell and later again lost my job, double oof another massive shaking of my Faith. Not too long after that my Wife and I separated, triple oof my Faith was in the dumpster again. Then it came to Divorce and her moving her boyfriend in next door to me, super oof, Faith took another hit. There I was reeling from another collapse in Faith, Shame just beating the crap out of me, when Jesus showed up and opened my eyes, gave me a completely different perspective of all of those things. Jesus came by and HELPED me in my unbelief.
My mom died, it was horrible, but God turned it into something amazing by giving me the testimony of how He brought me to my Church. When I lost my job shortly after that I was rocked and it wasn't until now that God has revealed how that was not as horrible as I viewed it at the time. After I lost my job, I ended up working at Cincinnati Bell and it was there that I met a guy named Jonah. He and I became good work friends however he ended up quitting a few months after starting there. He hated the job and it just wasn't for him, but he and I still kept in touch.
After I lost my job at Cincinnati Bell I remained unemployed for quite awhile, Covid hit so that wasn't a good time to look for and get a new job and I started Doordashing. I enjoyed not working for other people or the politics that come in the corporate environment. Nor did I miss the envy and shiestness that comes in Sales when you are good and others want you gone. During this time Jonah reached out to me a few times to tell me about a job, and I turned him down saying I was good doing Doordash.
Then my car broke down, ugh, I was pissed and took another hit to my Faith. Here I was trying to basically start my own company via Doordash, working the Market and trying to set up a website and the thing that I depended on to finance it all broke down. Ugh it was a tough time, however I got a windfall of money and ended up buying a different car. Well low and behold 2 days after I got this new car it broke down as well, I was furious. Completely broke with no car I couldn't keep going down the path I was on in terms of a job and so I reached out to Jonah.
So Jonah ends up getting me a job selling furniture, and to be honest I was not at all looking forward to either going back to a job, or selling furniture, I didn't think I would do that well or like it at all. Low and behold I have ended up LOVING my job, it is actually fun, I love the people I work with and I am making more money than I ever have in my life. I made so much money that I was able to finance a trip to Key West in less than one month of earnings. Not only that, the fact that my GM was allowing me to take a vacation after only being there a few months was another amazing unbelievable event in all of this.
There I was praying to God about my trip and my lack of belief and He shows up and opens my eyes to how every single thing that I had taken as a negative, every single time that I had lost hope, faith and belief, God had a bigger plan and worked it all out to bring me to that exact moment in my life where He was showing me how He was, is and has helped me in my unbelief and He assured me that He would be there to continue to help me in my unbelief. And as I have written this all out, He has woven Gen 50 right into it. All those times where others did Evil to me, God had turned them all around and used them to bring me to that place where He uplifted me and allowed me to go on to experience the best time in my life thus far in Key West!!!
God is good, God is miraculous and I want to encourage you, if you are at one of those places where you feel like your Faith has been shaken to cry out to God and ask Him to HELP you with your unbelief. I know that if you do that, listen, turn to Him and His Word He will show up for you just as He did for me and open your eyes to all the times He was there and He will HELP you with your struggles in your belief!!!
I love you all, have a great day and blessed day in the Lord!
If you need prayer or anything else please feel free to reach out to me and I will help you the best I can and if I can't help I know one man that can, this man named Jesus!
Disciples
Are
Continually
Influencing
Peoples
Living
Existence
Mark 10:45 For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.