Believing in Stages

Amazing things happen when you believe.

When the two days were over, he went from that place to Galilee (for Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in the prophet’s own country). When he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, since they had seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the festival; for they too had gone to the festival. Then he came again to Cana in Galilee where he had changed the water into wine. Now there was a royal official whose son lay ill in Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and begged him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. Then Jesus said to him, ‘Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.’ The official said to him, ‘Sir, come down before my little boy dies.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go; your son will live.’ The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started on his way. As he was going down, his slaves met him and told him that his child was alive. So he asked them the hour when he began to recover, and they said to him, ‘Yesterday at one in the afternoon the fever left him.’ The father realized that this was the hour when Jesus had said to him, ‘Your son will live.’ So he himself believed, along with his whole household. Now this was the second sign that Jesus did after coming from Judea to Galilee. -  John 4:43-54

Was the boy healed because the father believed, or did he believe because the boy was healed?

When Jesus told the man his son would live, the man went on his way, so he must have wanted to believe, or he would have pleaded for Jesus to come with him.

So, the healing begins with a certain amount of faith.

But he doesn't completely believe until he knows the boy was healed at the moment Jesus told him he would get better.  Maybe that is the way faith works for all of us.  First we want to believe, and then later when we see what faith brings, we truly believe.

Believing is a process that comes in stages.  We want to believe, and we go one faith, hoping we are right.  But it is not until we see the results we hoped for that we come to fully believe.

Jesus told the man this would happen.  Until you see signs, he said, you will not believe.

We all want a sign for God that he hears our pleas and will answer them.  That doesn't mean we don't have faith.  We do, but that faith gets so much stronger when we see the signs.

More to come...