Christ paid no heed in words to the man's confession of unbelief, but
proceeded to do the work which answered his prayer in both its
possible meanings. He responded to imperfect confidence by His perfect
work of cure, and, by that perfect work of cure, He strengthened the
imperfect confidence which it had answered.
Thus He educates us by His answers--His over-answers--to our poor
desires; and the abundance of His gifts rebukes the poverty of our
petitions more emphatically than any words of remonstrance beforehand
could have done. He does not lecture us into faith, but He blesses us
into it. When the Apostle was sinking in the flood, Jesus Christ said
no word of reproach until He had grasped him with His strong hand and
held him safe. And then, when the sustaining touch thrilled through
all the frame, then, and not till then, He said--as we may fancy, with
a smile on His face that the moonlight showed--as knowing how
unanswerable His question was, 'O thou of little faith, _wherefore_
didst thou doubt?' That is how He will deal with us if we will;
over-answering our tremulous petitions, and so teaching us to hope
more abundantly that 'we shall praise Him more and more.'
The disappointments, the weaknesses, the shameful defeats which come
when our confidence fails, are another page of His lesson-book. The
same Apostle of whom I have been speaking got that lesson when,
standing on the billows, and, instead of looking at Christ, looking at
their wrath and foam, his heart failed him, and because his heart
failed him he began to sink. If we turn away from Jesus Christ, and
interrupt the continuity of our faith by calculating the height of the
breakers and the weight of the water that is in them, and what will
become of us when they topple over with their white crests upon our
heads, then gravity will begin to work, and we shall begin to sink.
And well for us if, when we have sunk as far as our knees, we look
back again to the Master and say, 'Lord, save me; I perish!' The
weakness which is our own when faith sleeps, and the rejoicing power
which is ours because it is His, when faith wakes, are God's education
of it to fuller and ampler degrees and depth. We shall lose the
meaning of life, and the best lesson that joy and sorrow, calm and
storm, victory and defeat, can give us, unless all these make us
'rooted and grounded in faith.'
Dear friend, do you desire your truest good? Do you know that you
cannot win it, or fight for it to gain it, or do anything to obtain
it, in your own strength? Have you heard Jesus Christ saying to you,
'Come ... and I will give you rest'? Oh! I beseech you, do not turn
away from Him, but like this agonised father in our story, fall at His
feet with 'Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief,' and He will
confirm your feeble faith by His rich response.