Yesterday we reflected on fear and how it sometimes hinders us from committing fully to our mission sent from God. Today we look at faith, one of the three theological virtues. Faith and fear are about belief; fear is often about something terrible or good.
The disciples are asking the Lord to increase their faith. One would think they should already have faith in abundance because of all they have seen the Lord do and all that the Lord is; they were with Him. They witnessed all the miracles the Lord performed, taught them and others with authority, forgave sins and drove away demons. The disciples knew the Lord.
Faith is not like a profession or job; as the years pass, you become experienced, and your levels of competency increase. Faith is not like learning a new skill; once you have mastered it, you cannot unlearn it. Faith is different; our relationship with God is other. We know God, but like the disciples, we must ask the Lord to increase our faith because it often lacks from time to time.
I love the honesty of the disciples; their request is sincere and genuine. We can look and learn from the disciples. We sometimes struggle to become honest with God in prayer. We pray as we think we should, never wanting to express our vulnerability. We have ideas of what we believe prayer should be. How dare we think of asking God to increase our faith? "We are Christians, we
believe in God, so this means we have faith, and besides, what would God think if we were to be honest with him about our struggles concerning our faith?" sometimes we say, “God knows”. We are invited today to present our desires before the Lord with sincerity and honesty.
May we, like the disciples, when our faith stumbles, perhaps due to challenges in our lives, accept God's invitation to come to God without
being shy and ask for the refill we need to carry on.
Spend some time today asking the Lord to help you to be honest with Him in your prayer, and ask for the courage to be able to tell him what it is you need.
