Occasionally the Bible presents us with a puzzle. Matthew tells us the disciples couldn’t cast a demon out because of their “little faith” (Matt. 17:20). Then he adds something which appears to be a contradiction: “If you have faith like a grain of mustard seed… nothing will be impossible for you.” But Jesus himself told us that the mustard seed was the smallest of all seeds on the earth. So first he says their problem was their small faith. Then he says you only need small faith to do the impossible.

The Gospels tell the story of a desperate dad who brought his demonized son to Jesus for deliverance. While Jesus was up on the mountain, the man came looking for him. Failing to find him, he prevailed upon the remaining disciples for help. Their efforts came to nothing, and as Jesus came down the mountain, the man met him with his desperate plea.

A friend called me the other day to ask for prayer. He felt he was coming under severe demonic attack — one arrow after another was flying at him. Not only that, his children were experiencing demonic visitations at night while he was away speaking at a conference at which a large number of young people came to Christ.

The world is spending a lot of time arguing about freedom these days, but not a lot of time reflecting on what real freedom is. For us as Christians, freedom is a gift which operates regardless of our circumstances or what external restrictions we are under. It is something much deeper than which party is running the government, or whether you’re for or against masks. It means we shouldn’t get quite as worked up about some of these issues as we do. And it certainly means none of them are worth pursuing at the cost of dividing the body of Christ.

Patience.  I needed it badly on the occasion when I waited for over two hours to get through to the airline we were flying on because of a malfunction with their online booking system, then had to give up and accept a callback five days later.  The Greek word for patience is makrothumia.  Its meaning in the pagan culture was to put up something we cannot control.  Patience simply reflects the blunt truth of having to put up with whatever is out there.