Luke
9:41 - Jesus answered, “O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be
with you and bear with you?”
It is very rare to make steady
forward progress without a setback. Undefeated seasons are almost unheard of.
In 94 years of the NFL, that has happened only once including playoffs (1972
Miami Dolphins). Even though they inevitably come, setbacks and losses can be
discouraging. Those times can lead us to want to quit in hopelessness. I
imagine that is how the nine disciples Jesus did not take to the
Transfiguration felt.
They had seen nonstop progress.
Invited to follow Jesus, they saw miracle after miracle. At the beginning of
Chapter 9, their own miracle-filled ministry began. Then Peter made his
confession of Jesus as the Christ, and they understood more of who he was. They
also must have seen their own lives in that light. It had been a steady upward
journey in growing faith, knowledge, and power with Jesus, yet it all imploded
in their inability to help a little boy find freedom. They were even publicly
rebuked by their leader. Might they have wanted to quit altogether imagining
God could never use them?
Fortunately for us, Jesus’ first
disciples did not quit. They stayed walking with him. They made many more
mistakes and did not get everything right, but Jesus prepared and used them.
When his earthly ministry was complete, they took over, and their impact is still
experienced today by the hundreds of millions of us who still follow their
leader.
If you are discouraged by a setback
today, don’t quit. Faith is not the absence of doubt but rather pressing on in
spite of doubt and discouragement.
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