In Mark 9:14-29, we read of the boy that Jesus healed, who had a deaf and dumb spirit and who often had fits. Jesus asked the father whether he believed the boy could be healed and the father cried out and said with tears, “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.”
Words could not express that piercing emotion—that deep-seated need for help to overcome his human frailties.
I have often thought of the pitiful concubine in Judges 19 whose frailties caused her to run away from her husband and back to her home. In her father’s house she had affection and familiar things that made life easier, but the Lord says she was unfaithful.
Did she make vows when her father sold her?
What happened that caused her to run away?
We are not told those things, but we know she was at least “unfaithful” to the covenant her father made with her new owner.
She did not run off with a lover.
She ran home!
Not only did she lack faith, but she also was not submissive. Judges 19:2 says, “And his concubine played the whore against him, and went away from him unto her father’s house to Bethlehemjudah and was there four whole months.”
Those strong words define the frailties that made up her character.
On the other hand, Sarah was blessed to have a “familiar friend” and a brother who became her husband. The new land and the people were strange to her, but her husband was the solid rock that brought her through it all.
“Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone? And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken” (Ecc. 4:9-12).
THIS is yet another reason why one’s life companion must be chosen carefully and must be a disciple of Christ (2 Cor. 6:4). Many young people find someone who is “in the church,” but fail to realize that not all church members are children of God (Matt. 13:38-40).