When they returned to the other disciples, they saw a large crowd surrounding them, and some teachers of religious law were arguing with them. When the crowd saw Jesus, they were overwhelmed with awe, and they ran to greet him. “What is all this arguing about?” Jesus asked. One of the men in the crowd spoke up and said, “Teacher, I brought my son so you could heal him. He is possessed by an evil spirit that won’t let him talk. And whenever this spirit seizes him, it throws him violently to the ground. Then he foams at the mouth and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. So I asked your disciples to cast out the evil spirit, but they couldn’t do it.” Jesus said to them,  “You faithless people! How long must I be with you? How long must I put up with you? Bring the boy to me.” So they brought the boy. But when the evil spirit saw Jesus, it threw the child into a violent convulsion, and he fell to the ground, writhing and foaming at the mouth. “How long has this been happening?” Jesus asked the boy’s father. He replied, “Since he was a little boy. The spirit often throws him into the fire or into water, trying to kill him. Have mercy on us and help us, if you can.” “What do you mean, ‘If I can’?” Jesus asked. “Anything is possible if a person believes.” The father instantly cried out, “I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief!” When Jesus saw that the crowd of onlookers was growing, he rebuked the evil spirit. “Listen, you spirit that makes this boy unable to hear and speak,” he said. “I command you to come out of this child and never enter him again!” Then the spirit screamed and threw the boy into another violent convulsion and left him. The boy appeared to be dead. A murmur ran through the crowd as people said, “He’s dead.” But Jesus took him by the hand and helped him to his feet, and he stood up. Afterward, when Jesus was alone in the house with his disciples, they asked him, “Why couldn’t we cast out that evil spirit?” Jesus replied, “This kind can be cast out only by prayer.”

Mark 9:14-29

Dear God, I wonder what the argument was about. This story starts with Jesus coming upon a large argument between the disciples and “the teachers of the religious law.” Were the teachers goading the disciples for their impotence? Were the disciples embarrassed that they couldn’t do something they had done before?

It ties together with their question of Jesus as the end: “Why couldn’t we cast out that evil spirit?” They completely disappear in this story from the beginning to the end. It’s all Jesus, the father, and the boy between the stern words from Jesus about being exasperated by them and his answer to their question at the end. And his answer is fairly simple: “This kind can only be cast out by prayer [and fasting].” And its not a prayer that is done in the moment—at least in this case. No, I think part of the lesson here is that they need to be prayed up before they get into the situation. They need to be ready at any moment.

Too often, I find myself flat footed and not ready when a challenging situation presents itself to me. Perhaps I’m not prayed up enough. Yes, I do these prayer journals around lessons you teach me in scripture, but am I spending enough time really connecting my soul to you? The answer is sometimes yes and sometimes no. But I don’t think my current system would ever have me prepared to confront the kind of situation set before the disciples that day.

Father, I want to just take this moment to submit my heart to you. I give you my love and my worship. I thank you for who you are. I told a friend recently that I am hesitant to say that I have felt particularly blessed by you over the last few months when several good things have happened to me because I believe that you can be just as present and be giving just as many blessings during bad times too. I don’t need to see good things in my life to believe you are with me and I don’t need to interpret bad things as a sign that you are gone or that I am particularly wrong or sinful. Life is life, and you will use the bad and the good to teach and mold me into who you are. So I submit myself to that process, and I prayer is that you will make me ready when I come across a situation that will require that I have been in close, prayerful relationship with you.

In Jesus’ name I pray,

Amen