My 23 year son was very excited about his new job. Although he has very little experience in the field, he was hired with an HVAC company where he will be trained and have support for going returning to school to receive certification. What a great opportunity!! Things are looking up.  He hops in the 28 year old Honda Accord to make the hour and 15 minute commute (one way) to begin his two week training. On the way home one night, this faithful and trusty old vehicle blew its clutch a day or two into the new job training. Training that is required in order for him to keep this promising new job. This might be a great excuse for your boss when you’ve been on the job 2 years but NOT 2 days!

The quoted repair price exceeded the value of the car. So that’s out! My husband and I didn’t have an extra vehicle for him to borrow. So that’s out. I mean a solution had to be found in ONE weekend!!! No pressure! In an effort to make the best of a bad situation, I say, “well ‘at least’ he made it home, and we didn’t have to pay for a tow truck.”

“At least.” It’s a term used by many to accept an unpleasant reality…..a search to pick out the microscopic slice of positive in a large soup pot of negativity. Most of the time, we top off statements like this with a tone of finality, and a side of regretful expression. It’s a quick dish that is best not served at all, for it implies the larger portion of meal is hard to swallow. We chase it all down with a glass of “Now what?”

Don’t misunderstand me, picking out the positive is a good thing, but NOT having an “at least” mentality when it comes to spiritual matters….not when it comes to believing God for a miracle.

We don’t serve an “at least” kind of God….yet we often approach His throne expecting the minimum, if anything at all.

God told us to approach His throne with boldness! (Hebrews 4:16 & Ephesians 3:12)
God told us to make our requests known to Him! (Philippians 4:6)
And He tells us something else we need to know through this story in Mark chapter 9.

A father desperately wanted his son to be healed. Since his birth, the boy had been afflicted physically. His father describes it like this, “he has a dumb spirit. And wherever it lays hold of him so as to make him its own, it dashes him down and convulses him, and he foams at the mouth and grinds his teeth, and he falls into a motionless stupor and is wasting away. And it has often thrown him both into fire and into water, intending to kill him.”

If you were this boys daddy, what would you ask Jesus to do?

This desperate dad asks Jesus for the bare minimum…he asks if Jesus can even do anything at all. In other words, ‘whatever you can do will be better than nothing at all.’

How did Jesus respond to dad’s plea for the minimum? Jesus did not ridicule this anxious dad. Instead he gave Him the one ingredient he needed to receive his miracle by 100%

The ingredient: simply BELIEVE!!

Jesus tells him that ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE TO HIM WHO BELIEVES!!! (Mark 9:23)! All of it!! Not just the minimum. Not a part, but the WHOLE! This dad, recognizing that he might be a tablespoon shy of belief, he asked Jesus to help him to believe. Jesus did not make this difficult, nor did he condemn this man. His sick son was delivered and healed and made whole! 100%

Let’s kick “at least” to the curb when we talk to God!  Don’t settle for less! He is a God of MORE than enough! ALL things are possible to him who believes. And if you struggle with believing, no worries: He will help your unbelief just like he did that father, and He won’t be angry with you about it either. Our God is a good God, and He’s waiting to show you the maximum, not the minimum.