"Why couldn't we drive it out?" (Mark 9:28)
The disciples of Jesus had tried to heal a boy from a demon. They could not. The father comes running to Jesus for Jesus to do something. Jesus has no problems healing the boy. However, why could the disciples not accomplish this? They asked Jesus "Why couldn't we drive it out?" Jesus answers them with "This could only happen through prayer." The disciples did not do the wrong thing, they didn't say the wrong words, they tried hard, their motives were pure. It just took Jesus' touch. They had to depend solely on Jesus for that boy's healing.
It's an important lesson. So many times we put our faith in the means of our faith . . . we put our faith in the way we expect our congregation worship services to go, or the pomp and circumstance of our sacraments. Maybe we are putting our faith in our doctrine or our tradition. Maybe we are putting our faith in the hierarchy of the church or the denominational ties we have. Jesus lets us know that . . . it's all for not. We can only put our faith in God, we can only depend on God for what we need. While we may value these other things as an expression of our faith, nothing else truly matters except our relationship with Jesus. That's the key to living a life of faith and serving the world around us - we must completely depend on Jesus.
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