He Never Gives Up

Luke 9:37-43

³⁷On the next day, when they had come down from the mountain, a great crowd met him. ³⁸And behold, a man from the crowd cried out, “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son, for he is my only child. ³⁹And behold, a spirit seizes him, and he suddenly cries out. It convulses him so that he foams at the mouth, and shatters him, and will hardly leave him. ⁴⁰And I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not.” ⁴¹Jesus answered, “O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here.” ⁴²While he was coming, the demon threw him to the ground and convulsed him. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit and healed the boy, and gave him back to his father. ⁴³And all were astonished at the majesty of God.

When I read stories like this I wonder how many other miracles Jesus performed that weren’t recorded. John tells us that there were too many to tell. (“Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book;” John 20:30) It must have been an amazing 3 years. But for this man and his son, it was the most amazing day of  their lives; the son is taken from the hands of the evil one and given back his life. And for those of us who are parents we know that the father was given back his life as well.

That’s what Jesus does. He gives back life where once only death prevailed. The disciples are still not up to speed on that one and on their little training exercise they were unable to handle this particular problem. The request of the father comes with the information that the disciples were unable to cast out this demon. I think we have to chalk that up to fear. They probably didn’t face a great deal of fear when presented with someone who needed to be healed of an illness. But bring them a demon and fear takes over. Their faith gave way to terror. I get that. But Jesus was unimpressed by their fear and called it a marker of their faithlessness.

We probably aren’t dealing with “in your face” demons on a regular basis. We would readily agree with the disciples – that’s pretty scary. But we do let our faith be dominated by fear every once in a while and we would have to accept Jesus words to us as well, “O faithless and twisted generation . . .” I won’t deny it – that describes me sometimes. But what I also see here is that Jesus didn’t just walk away and leave everyone in their “faithless” state. Instead, he heals the boy and continues to train His disciples. He never gives up, throws up His hands, and walks away – not once. Instead He hangs in there until they get it and He does that with me too.

I’m grateful every single day that Jesus doesn’t call me a hopeless cause and move on to someone else. Instead He hangs in there with me and gives me the instructions again. He never withdraws His love because I blew it. His promise of salvation through His blood is firm and never withdrawn because I’m confused or fearful. Not only is His love never-ending, so is His patience!