Unless You Believe

Unless you believe, there’s nothing you can do nor think of that will result in anything good, loving, or miraculous.

Unless you believe.

It never was about you, nor will it ever be. It’s always been about believing for beliefs sake because Love is the heart of beliefs. Were it not so we never would have known it.

After facilitating miracles themselves and witnessing mid-blowing miracles, the disciples were having a hard time understanding how this was so. What was it exactly that made these awe-inspiring events happen?

The day before, Jesus lost his cool and cursed a fig tree even though he knew it wasn’t fruit-bearing season. “Let no one ever eat fruit from you again.”

The next day the disciples notice the fig tree is completely withered from its roots and point this out to Jesus who immediately tells them how miracles work by giving them an example of the immense power of belief.

You can tell a mountain to be removed and cast into the sea, and if you do not doubt in your heart it shall be done for you.

Jesus told the fig tree “let no one ever eat fruit from you again” and the tree died within a day. Jesus didn’t pray. He didn’t think. He simply spoke.

When the disciples pointed out that the fig tree was dead, he casually explained: speak, believe, and it shall be done for you.

If you do not doubt in your heart it shall be done for you.

Most people doubt, not because they don’t believe, per se, but because their minds and hearts are full of shit. If you’re a pastor or went to Seminary, you’re full of shit because you were taught a special brand of powerlessness. You’ve got a degree that perpetuates powerlessness masquerading as unrequited hope. You never facilitate miracles because you’re a part of the transactional meritocracy. Your church is a graveyard filled with music, bright lights — it’s where hope goes to die. The industry rags offer more of the same powerlessness. You’re good people. I love hanging out with you, having a beer, mountain biking with you, rock climbing with you, and sharing food with you, but time and again you substitute the gold with brass, confuse symptoms as causes, and equate morality with spirituality and Love. Instead of salt, your church is a synthetic preservative of the bullshit you were taught.

And yet right there in Mark 11 Jesus explains how miracles work. Your first thought was probably that if that were important your seminary would’ve taught it. Instead they proffered rationalizations as to why miracles are not a thing anymore, that they were just for Jesus to demonstrate his divinity. Never mind that Jesus himself said that we would do greater works than he did. Greater than raising the dead. Greater than turning water into wine. Greater than feeding 5,000 people from food for 12.

All you got from Seminary was a Masters of Doubt degree, and you’ve done an excellent job of teaching that doubt to your flock. By the time Jesus explains that miracles are done for those who don’t doubt in their heart, he’s up against thousands of years of powerlessness, hopelessness, brutally crushed dreams where politics alone determine what is and isn’t possible. Not you, not God, but man alone, profiting from misery. So much doubt packed inside one’s heart that most don’t ever unpack it and discard it because it’s too much fucking work to sift through too much heartbreak again and for what purpose? To suffer more heartbreak again.

Come to me. Bring all that heartbreak and forget everything you ever knew. Come to me. Lay it all aside and come to me just as you are. Not who you want to be or who you think you ought to be, just come to me as your are in this very moment. Don’t hold back the tears anymore. Cry on me, soak my hair and clothes to wash away all of the accumulated bullshit that has built up over all of the years, and just sit with me.

Tell that mountain of heartbreak be removed and cast into the sea and it shall be done for you.

Rufous hummingbird.