“Just Believe”

Overhearing what they said, Jesus told him, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.”
Mark 5:36 (NIV)

In our daily prayer together, Wendy and I try to regularly be grateful and recount all of the ways God has blessed us. I don’t do it because “giving thanks” is a command. I do it because when I stop for a moment to consider how blessed we really are, I am both grateful and humbled. And, I need a daily dose of gratitude and humility as much, if not more, than the small bowl of vitamins and supplements Wendy puts in front of me each morning.

As I get close the back-end of my sixth decade on this earthly journey, I have a lot of life and life experiences upon which to reflect. There are numerous waypoints on life’s road where my family and/or I have faced failures, tragedies, challenges, loss, struggles, and needs. In fact, I’m quite sure I have quite enough stories to take up a good part of your day and bore you to tears. After all, Jesus Himself told His followers, “In this world you will have troubles.” We all have them, don’t we?

In today’s chapter, Jesus confronts a trio of individuals in their very different but very real troubles. The first is a demon-possessed man, the second is a woman with a medical condition in which she had been bleeding for twelve-years which made her ritually unclean perpetually and a social outcast. Then there is a leader of the local synagogue who had a young daughter near death. Struggle and suffering come in many forms in this life, don’t they?

As Jesus is walking with the anxious father, word arrives from his household that his daughter had passed away. It was too late. Jesus happened to still be speaking with the woman healed from her bleeding. He was telling her that her faith had been the agent of her healing as He overhears the bad news the father just received. Jesus turns to the grieving father and immediately says, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.”

What a learning moment. The woman’s faith had precipitated her miraculous healing. The father had seen it. He was standing right there. Now Jesus calls on him to have the same kind of faith that the woman had. Not just the faith for healing from a medical condition, but faith to bring his daughter back from death.

One of the things that I’ve discovered along my life journey is that faith grows with every waypoint on life’s road in which one is required to trust and God is faithful in providing, healing, and delivering. By regularly recounting those waypoints and expressing gratitude for God’s faithfulness I am strengthening my faith for the unknown troubles, tragedies, and challenges that may be awaiting me just ahead. With them continually fresh in my memory it’s much more likely that I will react to the next challenge by hearing Jesus words, “Don’t be afraid; just believe” in my heart with faith and reacting with faith rather than fear.

By the way, Angel Studios’ production The Chosen did a masterful job of portraying the events in today’s chapter of the woman’s healing and the little girl’s rising. If you have a few minutes, it’s worth a watch. (There’s a link to it in the description of today’s podcast episode).