The prayer spoken by the man whose son Jesus is about to heal-- to free from demonic possession-- in today's reading from Mark's Gospel (Mk 9: 14- 29) is one of the most-applicable prayers in the New Testament, I think: "I do believe; help my unbelief." Doesn't it apply to all of us? The man has brought his son to Jesus' disciples to have them cast out the demon who has been throwing the son into fits since childhood, and Jesus' disciples can't do anything. So when Jesus Himself arrives, the man tells Jesus that the disciples have failed to do anything to help his son and then says: "But if you (meaning Jesus) can do anything, have compassion on us and help us." The request is appropriately polite and deferential. The man seems like he doesn't mean to impose or presume. But, given the failure of the disciples to accomplish anything, the man also displays a hint of uncertainty about whether or not Jesus can do any more than His followers have done. Of course, Jesus tolerates none of the uncertainty. You can hear the edge in His voice when Jesus says: "If you can...." He's basically saying that the word "if" is the man's problem. "Everything is possible to one who has faith," Jesus continues. In other words, Jesus tells the man to stop it with the "if" business and believe-- don't be half-hearted or tentative or uncertain or skeptical. Just believe. Easier said than done, which is why the man's response seems like one that applies to so many of us. He says that he does believe, but still nurses unbelief. His belief exists, but it isn't complete. He hasn't gone all in. Some part of him still hangs on to doubts. The man lives in the tension between belief and unbelief, the tension between what his senses tell him and what his heart understands, the awareness that there is more to the world than we can perceive and the reality that his son remains possessed by a devil and the disciples of the great healer have been unable to do anything about it. I think that kind of tension is a tension in which we all live. We believe in God, and that Jesus was and is His Son. But then tragedy strikes, and the question jumps into our head: "Where is God, and how can a loving God allow such a thing to happen?" If we're honest I think we're very much like the man whose son ends up getting healed by Jesus. We believe, but unbelief lurks beneath the surface. So that man's prayer might well be ours: "I do believe; help my unbelief."