The “Help me have faith” prayer.

Jesus was once presented a demonized boy, whose father kinda saw Jesus as their last hope. Mark tells his story thisaway:

Mark 9.21-24 GNT

21“How long has he been like this?” Jesus asked the father.

“Ever since he was a child,” he replied. 22“Many times the evil spirit has tried to kill him by throwing him in the fire and into water. Have pity on us and help us, if you possibly can!”

23“Yes,” said Jesus, “if you yourself can! Everything is possible for the person who has faith.”

24The father at once cried out, “I do have faith, but not enough. Help me have more!”

Jesus’s response was to throw the evil spirit out of the boy, and cure him—and tell his students nothing but prayer could throw out this sort of evil spirit, which merits a whole other article on that subject. But today I wanna focus on the boy’s father’s desperate cry to Jesus: Πιστεύω, βοήθει μου τῇ ἀπιστίᾳ/pistévo, voïthei mu ti apistía, “I believe, [but] help my unbelief.” The way the Good News Translation puts it is closer to what this father meant by it: He had enough faith in Jesus to come to him and beg for help, but man alive did he need more.

And that’s always a good thing to pray. It’s humble; it recognizes we’re deficient in just how much we trust God. We gotta put more faith in him! Often we turn to him for help as a last resort—we’ve tried every other way out of our jam, but they haven’t got us anywhere, and finally we figure, “Well, there’s prayer. If nothing else, we can try prayer.” God should’ve been our first resort, but we don’t trust him enough. Sorta like Jesus should’ve been this guy’s first resort, but he figured he’d try Jesus’s saints first, and see if St. James the Less and St. Jude and St. Thomas and the other saints in the Twelve might answer his prayers instead, Mk 9.18 ’cause Jesus was busy with other stuff. (Being transfigured, actually.) Unfortunately Jesus’s students weren’t yet up to the challenge. They had their own faith deficiencies.

But since we already know we oughta be praying in faith, when we know our faith in God simply isn’t gonna be good enough, “Help my unbelief,” or “Help my unfaith,” or “Help my doubts,” or every similar cry of “Help!” is the right thing to pray. We need some of that mustard-seed-size faith which can get trees to uproot themselves and jump in the ocean. Lk 17.6 We’re not gonna pretend we totally have it when of course we don’t. Even those of us with amazing testimonies of God-experiences in which we saw for ourselves as he did miraculous things, can get wobbly in our faith sometimes. By all means we should ask for more.

And should often ask for more.

We shouldn’t make the mistake of asking for more faith and greater faith when we’re in a crisis where we kinda need that extra faith. We should be mature, responsible Christians who plan ahead: We should ask for it now. Right now. Feel free to stop reading this article and ask for it now. And make sure you ask for it every chance you get.

Jesus has the sort of faith where he could ask his Father for silly things and get ’em:

Matthew 21.18-22 GNT

18On his way back to the city early next morning, Jesus was hungry. 19He saw a fig tree by the side of the road and went to it, but found nothing on it except leaves. So he said to the tree, “You will never again bear fruit!” At once the fig tree dried up.

20The disciples saw this and were astounded. “How did the fig tree dry up so quickly?” they asked.

21 Jesus answered, “I assure you that if you believe and do not doubt, you will be able to do what I have done to this fig tree. And not only this, but you will even be able to say to this hill, ‘Get up and throw yourself in the sea,’ and it will. 22If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”

There are Christian myths throughout our history where various saints likewise asked God for odd things like this, and God granted their requests. They’re myths in that they might be true, or might be based on truth, but we can’t know just how true they are because a responsible historian didn’t record them properly. But I don’t doubt Christians with great faith could totally have asked their Father for outrageous things, and got them because they had the same sort of profound faith Jesus talks about in Matthew 21.

How’d they have this? Well duh; they asked for it. They wanted mountain-moving faith, and prayed for it, and got it. You do realize you’re allowed to pray for it too. And get it.

Ironically when Christians have doubts—serious, great big doubts about what God might do for them, or what God might do anymore, or whether all the miracle stories in the bible aren’t just pure fiction—they tend not to pray, “Help me have faith.” They doubt that prayer will work, so they don’t pray it. They won’t even experiment with praying it. Which is kinda silly, isn’t it?—if every Christian, including me, including you, has the potential to do Jesus-level miracles, and all we have to do is ask, why not ask?

Well… maybe these folks are afraid it’ll prove once and for all God is real, living, and active, and now they actually gotta take him seriously and follow Jesus, and that’s gonna upend their whole lives. And they’re far more comfortable with the idea of a distant, silent God who expects nothing of them—not even faith—but promises them heaven anyway. That’s a ridiculously easy God to follow, so that’s the one they want.

Me, I figure believing in such a God is functionally no different than believing in no God at all, and I don’t want that. I want Jesus and everything he offers. I want faith like his. So I’m gonna pray “Help me have more,” and believe that’s a prayer request he’s happy to grant.