He Got It While Still Saying Both

You have been waiting to be undivided.

Not consciously. Nobody wakes up and decides to wait for that. But if you traced back the reason you have not properly brought the thing yet, and you have not, in about four years, you would find that at the bottom of it.

You are waiting until you can bring it in one piece.

Because a prayer that says two things at once feels, to you, like handing somebody a form with contradictory answers on it. You would like to arrive with the request in a state that does not require an explanation, and so you have been waiting for the two halves to agree before you take it anywhere.

They have not agreed. They have been sitting there like two people at a table who will not look at each other.

Let me say something before we go on.

I am not correcting you.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to bring something whole. That is not a fault, it is a kind of respect, and I am not going to tell you the four years were wasted.

I am saying I know what you are waiting for. That is all. And I want to walk through one scene very slowly with you, because I think you have read it quickly.

The man in Mark

Here is the whole of it, and I want to take it in order.

A father brings his son to the disciples and they cannot help. There is a crowd, and an argument going on, and Jesus arrives into the middle of it and asks what is happening.

The father explains. He has been carrying this for years. He tried the disciples and it did not work.

And then he says the sentence that gives the whole scene away, and it is worth noticing that it comes out of him before he has thought about how it sounds.

If thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us, and help us.

If thou canst. He says that to Jesus' face, having just watched the disciples fail, and it is the honest state of a man who has been let down and has come anyway.

And Jesus picks up the word.

Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.

And then the father says it.

And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.Mark 9:22-24

Now look at what happens next, because this is the part people skip.

The tension is not resolved. He does not say I believe, and then, having got that out, quietly withdraw the second half. He does not go away and come back when the two halves agree.

Jesus does not ask him to. There is no follow up question. There is no second attempt.

The very next verse is Jesus dealing with the situation, and the boy is delivered, and the man walks home with a child and a sentence that never got sorted out.

So I want to turn now and speak this over you, in that family room with the sun across the floor.

You are able to bring it divided, because a divided prayer is the one on record as having been answered. Not one day, not once the halves agree, not when you can say it in one piece. Right now, exactly as you are, you are standing where that father stood, and he got what he came for while still saying both. That is not my kindness. That is what is written, and the Holy Spirit is the one who sets a written line down in a real person in a real week.

Now, the four years.

They were not wasted and I am not going to say they were. But the condition you set for yourself is not in the text anywhere.

Nobody in that chapter is waiting for coherence. The father does not achieve it, before or after. What he does is say the whole of what is in him, out loud, in front of a crowd, with tears on his face, and then stand there.

And this next part is settled rather than pending, so hear it. You have permission to bring a request that contradicts itself, and the permission is not implied, it is demonstrated. The word says help thou mine unbelief, spoken by a man who had just said I believe, and it is His Spirit who carries a written line into a real room on a real afternoon.

Bring it divided. It has never once had to arrive in one piece.