“And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them.” (Mark 6:5)
“And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees, walking.” (Mark 8:24)
“Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.” (Mark 9:23)
I pose a question that I am in no way blessed with the wisdom to understand, one that, if your faith is weak, may corrupt your idea of the Sovereignty of the Most High, but that is not my intention. The contemplative man desires to look into the things of God that cannot be answered by anyone but the Almighty, we search for Him in places that He has designed that we cannot find Him in, in matters that He has yet to reveal to us. It is never an attempt to find a contradiction in His Word, there are none, nor is it meant to reveal to us that He is less than completely Sovereign over all of His creation, for He is.
There are things that the Lord has decided not to reveal to us in this life, and in fact may never be revealed, but we are to answer in agreement with David when He said, “When thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, LORD, will I seek.” (Psalm 27:8)
Perhaps it is a misinterpretation on my part of the words “could there do no mighty work” in our opening verse here, but the message seems clear, because of a lack of faith in that town, He could do few miracles there. When He placed the spit on the man’s eyes, the man was not healed the first time, the Lord needed to repeat the act before the man’s vision was restored completely. And if we do not believe, if we do not have faith, or enough of it, what is possible for us? “And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole.” (Luke 17:19)
It seems a ridiculous statement to me, to limit the power of the Most High God in our lives because we do not possess enough faith, or to say that our faith, our belief in the Lord is somehow symbiotic with His power to work in us. Can He who formed all that is with only a word be limited in any way, is the Creator of all known reality hindered by our belief in Him when it comes to doing a work through us?
As far as I can recall, when the man received his sight, and it took two tries to do so, it was the only time that happened. The One who told Lazarus to come out of the tomb, who formed the heavens and earth by the power of His Word had to try again. Because of their lack of faith, He could do no might works there.
Do we have to believe for God to be able to work through us?
To be blunt here, that sounds downright stupid to me, to think that man who is but dust can hinder the Lord God Almighty. Perhaps the best possible response would be that this is how He has decided to work at this time, as I said, I have not been blessed with the knowledge of these things at this time. How does one increase their own faith when even our faith is a gift from God, how does faith grow if experiences that can only be attributed to the Lord do not occur, and how often do they need to occur to continue in that growth process?
How does one relate “I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing,” (John 15:5) with the truth that our faith is what causes God to be able to work through us? What is the hierarchy of power here, our faith or the Sovereignty of God?
As I said, questions that we cannot answer yet, if your faith is strong enough, an oxymoronic statement it seems, you will contemplate them. We cannot reconcile in this life the Sovereignty of God and the free will of man, God has reserved that for Himself.
