The Faith Of An Empty Hand

When I was younger and, dare I say it, more naïve, I was part of many ministry teams and outreach groups. On one of these teams we did a spiritual gifts test, almost like a personality test, but for spiritual gifts. Faith (the ability to remember God's promises and to hold on to His Word amidst circumstantial difficulty) was one of my top ones. Since then my faith has been tested and have come up short, often. Now, facing overwhelming odds with no physical or material answers to very real questions, my faith is tested again. I don't know where the money and resources for all I believe God is calling me into will come from, which in itself makes me wonder whether God really is calling me into these things. I don't have enough faith, it seems. Not anymore.

Almost like the man we read about in Mark 8:22-26. He was blind. By all accounts it was his friends who brought him to Jesus and asked Jesus to heal him. This man seems oddly quiet in the presence of Jesus, the one Person who could heal him. However, it is through the faith of his friends that he gets to a place where he can experience God's mercy and healing.

We won't always have the faith to approach Jesus ourselves. Whether it is because of feelings of guilt, feelings of unworthiness, or the feeling that He has disappointed us in the past, our faith won't always be strong enough to go to God as we need to. When our faith is too small, though, we always have friends and family in Christ who might be able to believe and trust for us, in our stead.

Something else that jumps out in this passage is that Jesus didn't heal the man in one go. It took some spit in the eyes and then a personal touch to make the man see again. We don't know the reason for this. We don't know if Jesus was having an off day, or whether He was tired, or whether the man's lack of faith influenced Jesus' healing power in some way. We don't know whether it was intentional by Jesus, or whether there were other, unknown spiritual forces at work. Whatever the reason for this, however, we see that Jesus keeps on trying until the man was healed.

We can take much encouragement from this. Whatever we're facing, whether it is of our own doing, whether it is the work of Satan himself, whether Jesus is more in control than we think, whatever it is, we can know that Jesus will complete what He started in us. He will never leave the job half done. Paul echoes this sentiment in Philippians 1:3-6 when he tells the Philippians that the good work started in them will be carried through to completion until the day of Jesus Christ. Jesus Himself encouraged the disciples to always keep on praying and never give up (Luke 18:1). Imagine how disappointed the blind man would have been if he got up halfway through the healing, not able to see clearly, angered that Jesus didn't do it all in one go, with the fullness of sight just a short wait away.

Faith is easy when things are going smoothly and easily. But that's not faith. Faith is holding on to Jesus in the valley of death, in the valley of despair, in the desert place, in the times of trial and tribulation. That's faith. That's where our faith grows. That's where we see Jesus at work and where we get to know Him a little bit better; when we have, as Jars Of Clay calls it, the faith of an empty hand. No more answers. No more self-made anchors. No more straws to grasp at. No more possibilities. Just Christ and the faith of an empty hand.