Help My Unbelief

A very short musing, as it's getting late & I am once again trying to force myself back into the swing of writing. (One of these days, I'll be consistent. Promise.)

He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” -Mark 4:39-40.

No faith. Do I still have no faith.

Do I, Lord? Not just little faith, but do I actually have none at all? Has the storm taken up so much of my range of vision that my faith is actually gone? Has my everyday life & my anger at the Church & my gross misunderstanding of You gotten so out of control that I could possibly be one of those disciples? Do I have no faith left?

I want to believe, Lord. Help my unbelief.

I want to believe that I have nothing to prove. I want to believe that Your love for me knows no bounds, that Your grace over me is deeper than deep and wider than wide. I want to believe that You are here in the middle of my chaos and that You uphold me with Your right hand. I want to believe that I am Your beloved and I want to believe that nothing I could do, nothing I could say, nothing I could think could ever take that away. I want to believe that I can still believe that Your promises are for me, too.

I want to stop making my relationship with You contingent on my politics, because I know that I am saved by grace through faith, and I know that Your promises to me are yea and amen.

But when I said that I love You and I love Your people and I didn't think they were any more wrong than I was, I was cut off from You. I was told that I couldn't use my gifts, that I needed to choose or change my mind.

We weren't the same anymore, You and I. I couldn't raise my hands or fall to my knees in unbridled praise. I didn't know who You were anymore. Were you the Abba I'd been told I could count on, or were You the Judge I should fear and obey without question?

Sometimes I find myself coming back to You and asking who, what, why. Most of the time I don't hear Your answer over my cries. I'll catch a glimpse of You sometimes, calling out from down the shoreline, asking me to follow You and be a fisher of men. No dogma, no institution, just me walking in Your holy footsteps.

I want to believe that You are here and Your arms are holding me and You are the balm over my wounds.

I want to believe these things, but maybe I really have no faith. If it only takes faith the size of a mustard seed to move a mountain, then what is mine? Dust swimming in a certain slant of sunlight? A molecule of oxygen? Help my unbelief.