Smoke and Fire

“Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.” — Mark 9:24 (KJV)

Sibbes says grace is not only small at first; it is also mixed. There is real fire in a Christian, but there is also smoke: doubts, selfishness, mixed motives, old habits.

He goes through the Bible finding examples of this mixture. A father once came to Jesus with a sick son and said, “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.” Sibbes points out that “Lord, I believe” is the light, and “help thou mine unbelief” is the smoke.

The disciples, in a storm on the lake, woke Jesus and shouted, “Master, carest thou not that we perish?” There was smoke in that, the smoke of fear and doubt. But there was also enough faith to cry out to Jesus. Jonah, inside the great fish, said he had been cast out of God’s sight. That was smoke. But in the same breath he said he would look again towards God’s holy temple. That was light.

Even Paul cried out, “O wretched man that I am!” when he thought about the sin still in him. But in the very next breath he thanked God through Jesus Christ.

This means you can stop expecting your faith to be pure before you think it counts. Sibbes says even the best actions of the best people need Christ to make them acceptable. When we pray, our prayers need forgiving too.

“Broken hearts can yield but broken prayers.”

If your prayers come out messy and distracted, if you love God but also love things that pull you away, if you believe but also doubt, welcome to the Christian life. That is smoking flax, and Jesus will not quench it.

Sibbes even says there is a reason God leaves us with this mixture for now. It protects us from two dangers: being careless and being proud. If we felt perfect, we would stop depending on Jesus. The smoke keeps us humble and keeps us running back to him.

One day, Sibbes says, the smoke will be gone and the fire will be pure. That is heaven. Until then, light and smoke together are normal.

One thing to do this week: this week, try praying the prayer of the father in Mark 9: “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.” Say it when you feel doubt or when you feel faith, or both at once. Notice that Jesus answered that man’s prayer.