I Believe, Help My Unbelief

“I believe, help my unbelief.”

All eloquence and prose of the English language cannot sum up the emotion and power within those five words. When a soul is brought so low to utter this in prayer there is certainly a great yearning deep within, but to utter it would be to speak unjustly of it and thus demean the weightiness of the issue.

There is no way to sway away the tears from the eyes of the one who prays this, it is a task only God can do, only in his arms will one find the safety one so desperately needs. The pining of one's heart and the longing of the spirit is for God to comfort and calm, for God to save and redeem, for God to fix and mend.

And as the night has grown to its darkest point the dawn begins to creep in and the tormented soul begins to see the light of God’s irrefutable goodness. In the pale morning light the mourner recognizes he stand on the opposite side of the valley from whence he began. And, thus, begins to ascend to the top of the mountain in sweet remembrance of how God taught him as a teacher a pupil.

How he had, for years, been patiently repeating the same lesson and calmly prodding the child to learn it well. How he brought in guest lecturers to wax eloquently about the lesson to the student who enjoyed the toys more than the work. How he had stooped onto the child’s level and talked to him in words he knew quite well and taught him the lesson in detail. How he held the students hand when the lesson was driven home, and how he continues to teach the lesson to a pupil who now stands in awe of the teacher’s wisdom.

And thus the student wanderer has come through the valley of sheer darkness to see in the radiance of the cool morning light all the torment and fear he has been brought through. Now as he looks ahead he sees the sea of grace that has already swallowed him, the sea that will indeed carry him home.