My faith is not a faith that can move mountains nor can it drive away evil spirits. Often, I am faced with mountains of obstacles and problems. I will them to go away but they wont. There are times I have to struggle for days when I am possessed by all kinds of evil spirits: greed, selfishness, anger and rancor, bitterness and depression, lust and gluttony for earthly pleasures. And it takes a whole while before they are gone. I struggle to keep my faith strong. And, it is my faith that keeps me strong in my struggles.
Sometimes, I engage in some sort of a Pascal’s Wager in reverse. Agnosticism and not believing seem to be a better choice than faith and believing. If I die and there is no afterlife, I will not be disappointed. I wouldn’t even know in the first place since the light of my consciousness just simply goes out. If I die and there is a God and He is everything I have been taught that He is, then He would still welcome me into His loving embrace.
These thoughts come and go. I cling to my faith even as I struggle with my doubts. I seek out silence and solitude so that I may truly encounter Him whom my heart longs for. In my heart, I know my Savior lives. And like the father of the son possessed by demons, I pray constantly, “I do believe, help my unbelief.” In my doubts and struggles, in the silence and solitude of my prayers, that is where I encounter the saving presence of my God. Rising up from my prayer, I will see God’s hand at work even in the most ordinary and mundane events in my life, in every person I encounter and in every moment that I am alive.
Jesus said to him, “‘If you can!’ Everything is possible to one who has faith.”
Then the boy’s father cried out, “I do believe, help my unbelief!”
Jesus, on seeing a crowd rapidly gathering,
rebuked the unclean spirit and said to it,
“Mute and deaf spirit, I command you:
come out of him and never enter him again!”
Shouting and throwing the boy into convulsions, it came out.
When he entered the house, his disciples asked him in private,
“Why could we not drive the spirit out?”
He said to them, “This kind can only come out through prayer.”
Mark 9:14-29