… a man came out … and fell to his knees begging, “… have mercy on my son. He goes out of his mind and suffers terribly…. I brought him to your church, but they could do nothing for him.”
Oh how frequently I am the one who does nothing or whose efforts result in nothing. Have mercy on those who are further along the path who have tried to teach me. I can hear their thoughts:
“What a silly follower you are! You have no presence — no sense of God! No focus to your life! How many times do I have to repeat this? How much longer do I have to put up with your childish ways?
“Bring the kid to me. But could ya’ll just at least try, just try, to catch up with me? If you could catch up, if we could all row together, just THINK what the world could be like. Just THINK of it! It’d spread like wildfire. ” And with a steady and practiced hand, the boy was healed.
How many times? How many times? How many times? Why am I unsuccessful?
“Well, you’re not (yet) taking God seriously…. It’s simple really, if you had just the tiniest little bit of faith, say the size of the head of a pin, you could tell this mountain, ‘Move!’ and the mountain would hop right on over into the sea. The strength to perserve despite ANY obstacle would be within you. There is nothing, nothing at all, that you wouldn’t be able to face or to accomplish.”
Matt. 17:14 – 20