I was in Mark 9:14-29 early this morning. Jesus got really bent out of shape at his primary followers because they didn’t have faith. This is the same crew that had previously been out on healing the sick, casting out demons, raising the day type of excursions. Here, they can’t help this boy and sensei accuses them of itty-bitty faith syndrome.

What gives?

My impression is that they were on the short end of the stick in the risk department.

How so?, you might ask…

risk: placing something valued ina position or situation where it can be damaged, lost or exposed to danger.”

We need to learn to fail. If you’ve never failed, you really haven’t taken a risk. If you’ve never risked anything, you cannot succeed. These fellows in Mark 9 hadn’t learned that… yet.

They’d been successful with minimal risk. They’d had to be willing to risk something to go when Jesus sent them out. He’d guaranteed them they would succeed. And hadn’t they seen him heal thousands?

But now, in the face of that success, they weren’t having to risk very much. They’d done this; they wanted to prove how good they were at it (“Hey, Jesus, looky here!”).

They simply forgot one thing: world-changers are only developed in a culture of faith. Faith demands risk. Risk means sometimes you lose…

[to be continued…]