Lord, I Believe. Forgive My Unbelief.
“Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, ‘Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!’” — Mark 9:24
Lord, I believe.
But today I want to be honest enough to ask You:
Where have I stopped believing You?
Where have disappointment, delay or circumstances slowly changed what I believe about who You are?
Where am I still praying the right words, but underneath them I have already decided that nothing will change?
Where have I allowed what I see to become more convincing than what You have said?
Lord, I believe. Forgive my unbelief.
When unbelief hides beneath our prayers
The father in Mark 9 came to Jesus desperate for his son.
Jesus said to him:
“If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.” — Mark 9:23
And immediately the father cried out:
“Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”
I love his honesty.
He didn’t pretend to have perfect faith. He recognised that belief and unbelief were somehow wrestling inside him — and he brought that conflict straight to Jesus.
Perhaps we need to do the same.
Because it is possible to pray while secretly expecting nothing to happen.
It is possible to speak God’s promises while inwardly agreeing with the impossibility.
It is possible to say, “God can,” while quietly believing, “but probably not here. Not anymore. Not for me.”
And there comes a moment when I don’t simply want to excuse that unbelief.
I want to repent of it.
Repentance brings me back into agreement with God
Repentance is not shame.
It is turning.
It is recognising where my thinking has moved away from God’s truth and choosing to come back into agreement with Him.
Lord, I have believed my circumstances more than Your Word.
Forgive me.
I have allowed disappointment to tell me who You are.
Forgive me.
I have rehearsed the impossibility instead of remembering Your faithfulness.
Forgive me.
I have protected my heart from disappointment by lowering my expectation of You.
Forgive me.
Lord, I repent of my unbelief. Teach me to believe You again.
There is such freedom in bringing unbelief into the light.
I don’t have to hide it from God. He already sees it.
But neither do I want to make peace with it.
I want Him to expose every place where disappointment, fear, human reasoning or the voice of the enemy has become louder than His Word.
Has disappointment hardened my heart?
Sometimes unbelief doesn’t begin with rebellion.
Sometimes it begins with pain.
You believed before.
You prayed before.
You hoped before.
And the answer didn’t come the way you expected.
Scripture says:
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick…” — Proverbs 13:12
And if we are not careful, disappointment can quietly become a filter through which we begin to see God.
We stop expecting.
We become cautious with hope.
We tell ourselves we are simply being “realistic.”
But perhaps underneath our realism is a heart that has become afraid to believe again.
Jesus encountered unbelief even among those closest to Him. After His resurrection, Mark tells us that He confronted His disciples because they did not believe those who had seen Him alive (Mark 16:14).
That challenges me.
Because I don’t want disappointment to make my heart hard towards the promises of God.
I don’t want yesterday’s unanswered questions to determine what I believe about God today.
So, Lord, search me.
Where has my heart become hard?
Where have I stopped taking You at Your Word?
Where have I made an agreement with doubt?
Where have I accepted something as impossible when You never told me to stop believing?
Show me.
And when You do, give me the humility to repent.
Repentance turns my eyes back to Jesus
The answer to unbelief isn’t trying harder to create an emotional feeling called faith.
It is returning to Truth.
Returning to His Word.
Returning to the character of God.
Returning to Jesus.
Faith begins to rise again when I stop staring at the mountain and remember the One standing with me before it.
I may not understand His timing.
I may not know how He will answer.
I cannot dictate what the answer must look like.
Faith is not controlling the outcome.
Faith is trusting God.
It is saying:
Lord, I don’t understand, but I know You are good.
I cannot see the way forward, but I know You can.
My circumstances haven’t changed yet, but I refuse to allow them to become my authority.
Your Word has the final say in my heart.
Lord, I choose to believe again
There are things I have prayed for for a long time.
Things I still cannot see.
And perhaps you have those places too.
Today, instead of allowing the waiting to slowly erode our faith, what if we came before God and allowed Him to search our hearts?
Not with condemnation.
With surrender.
Father, forgive me for every place where I have partnered with unbelief.
Forgive me for allowing disappointment to speak louder than Your faithfulness.
Forgive me for agreeing with fear, doubt and impossibility.
Forgive me for praying while inwardly expecting nothing to change.
Forgive me for allowing what I see to become greater in my heart than who You are.
I repent.
Wash my heart clean of unbelief.
Renew my mind with Your Word.
Soften every place that disappointment has hardened.
Give me fresh faith to believe You.
I surrender the outcome and the timing to You — but I refuse to surrender my confidence in who You are.
Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.
And where unbelief has taken root:
Lord, forgive me. I repent. I choose to believe You again.
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