🙌It's the Friday Call to Worship!🙌

Everyone loves a feel-good miracle. We loved watching joy overcome a family who’d suffered when the crew from “Extreme Home Makeover” shouted “Move that bus!” We are moved by testimonies of healing and radical experiences of modern day faith heroes. But what about our normal lives? What about the inglorious trials that aren’t TLC worthy?

What about the unseen, dark hours of the night when a sick or disabled child can’t sleep? What about the daily weight of caring for degenerating parents? Or thick sorrow of waking up again to an empty side of the bed, empty bedroom down the hall, or some other apparent grief?

There was a father who spent his adult life watching his child suffer. His son had seizures, sicknesses, and was a danger to himself and others. There were no days off. I haven’t walked in this father’s shoes, but I have known the slippery and debilitating slope of survival. And the relentless sludge at the bottom. It can feel impossible to hope one more hope or expose yourself again with two feet sunk in sludge.

Still, the faithful father asked some men with a reputation for miracles to pray for his son. Nothing happened. Again. Maybe this father’s son was the unhealable, unhelpable exception. Ever felt like you or your circumstances were unhealable? Unhelpable? Me too.

Jesus showed up after his disciples prayers went unanswered. Religious leaders were publicly piling on condemnation. Still, the faithful father looks at Jesus and says, “… if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us." Jesus rebuts with “If you can'? Everything is possible for the one who believes." And the father “immediately” cries out, “I do believe. Help my unbelief.”  And his son was set free. (Mark 9:14-27)

I’ve borrowed that father’s prayer many times when I couldn’t find the hope to hope. Sometimes only gutturally. “I believe. Help my unbelief.” It’s one of the purest forms of worship and rawest kinds of faith to be honest before God. (Psalm 51:7)

He just wants you to come. He specializes in sludge.

Listen to Chris Tomlin’s “Help My Unbelief”.