“Do not be afraid; only believe”
Brother Ted, Bob, and John
A week ago Sunday morning, I was reading Mark 5.
It’s a story many of us know. Jairus, one of the rulers of the synagogue, comes to Jesus because his little daughter is dying. He pleads with Jesus to come to his home and heal her.
Jesus goes with him.
But along the way, something happens.
A woman who has been suffering for twelve years reaches through the crowd and touches Jesus’ garment. She believes that if she can simply touch His clothes, she will be healed.
And she is.
Jesus stops. He speaks with her. He calls her “Daughter” and tells her that her faith has made her well.
But while Jesus is still speaking, people arrive from Jairus’ home with devastating news.
“Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?”
Then come the words that stayed with me all morning:
“Do not be afraid; only believe.”
Mark 5:36
Little did I know how much those words would mean to me before the day was over.
My wife and I were driving to a Detroit Tigers baseball game in Michigan when we found ourselves in one of the heaviest downpours I can ever remember driving through. The rain was pounding. Water covered the highway. Cars everywhere had their flashers on, moving maybe 45 miles an hour or slower.
As I drove, those words from Jesus were still somewhere in my mind.
Don’t be afraid. Only believe.
And then my youngest brother, John, called.
As we drove through that storm, John began telling us what had happened to him just days earlier.
On Tuesday, he had started experiencing chest pain. Something told him this wasn’t right, so he asked his neighbor to drive him to the hospital.
As they drove, John said something came over him.
“If this is my last day, I’m okay.”
He wasn’t afraid.
He simply believed.
When John arrived at the emergency room, he sensed an urgency to get help immediately.
The next thing he remembers is waking up in the ICU.
He had experienced a life-threatening cardiac event. His heart had to be shocked with a defibrillator, and doctors placed two stents in his heart.
Today, John is home recovering.
As Laurie and I listened to him tell the story, all I could think about were those words I had read that morning.
Don’t be afraid. Only believe.
John told us that what happened could just as easily have happened while he was home alone in the middle of the night.
But it didn’t.
He felt the chest pain.
He called his neighbor.
He got in the car.
He arrived at the hospital.
And when his heart needed to be revived, he was surrounded by people who could help him.
I don’t believe in chance, karma, or luck.
I believe in a sovereign God.
I believe there is One who knows our days before we live them. One who goes before us. One who sees what we cannot see.
Back in Mark 5, Jesus finally arrives at Jairus’ home. Everyone believes it is too late.
But Jesus knows something they don’t know.
He walks into the room, takes the little girl by the hand, and tells her to arise.
And she gets up.
What everyone around Him thought was the end of the story wasn’t the end at all.
As I listened to my brother yesterday, I couldn’t help but think that Tuesday wasn’t John’s final day either.
God knew.
And perhaps that is where faith meets us.
Not in knowing what tomorrow holds.
Not in pretending that frightening things aren’t frightening.
Not in believing that difficult things will never happen to us.
But in knowing the One who holds tomorrow.
Jesus didn’t give Jairus a long explanation. He didn’t explain everything that was happening or tell him how the story would end.
He simply said:
Do not be afraid.
Only believe.
As we continued driving through that incredible rainstorm, Laurie and I prayed with John over the phone.
And those words became more than something I had read in my Bible that morning.
They became something to live.
Maybe today you are facing something you don’t understand. Maybe there is a diagnosis, a relationship, a child, a financial burden, a decision, or simply an unknown tomorrow that has allowed fear to creep in.
There is One who is greater.
There is One who loves you.
There is One who sees you.
There is One who has gone before you.
You don’t have to know how the story ends to trust the One who does.
“Do not be afraid; only believe.”
Sometimes faith really is that simple.
And sometimes it takes everything we have.
But either way, Jesus asks the same thing of us.
Only believe.