No Easy Answers with Mike Bellanti
Nov 2, 2026 · 37 min · 10 segments
Can faith and doubt coexist? Faith doesn't mean having all the answers or never questioning what you believe. In fact, seasons of doubt can be an important part of how our faith grows and changes…
The first is Mark chapter 9, there's this story in which a father has brought his son to the Father is claiming that his son is possessed by a spirit, it robs him of speech, and it seizes him and throws him on the ground, he foams in the mouth, he gnashes his teeth.
And this father says to Jesus, I asked your disciples to drive them out, and they could not.
The father is asked by Jesus, how long has he been like this from childhood? And then the father says, but if you can do anything...
And immediately the boy's father exclaimed, and I love this response, I do believe...
Help me overcome my unbelief, which seems to be, at many stages in my life, my mission verse.
I mean, I seem like I've had moments of these, but there's another passage that I want to contrast this with, and this comes from Matthew 21, it's the story of Jesus cursing the fig tree, and he curses the fig tree, it withers and dies, the disciples see it, and Jesus says to them, I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will do greater things than I do.
And so as we think about faith and doubt, you probably have conversations in what you do, I know I have conversations, about followers of Christ who struggle with doubt.
The thing that really strikes me about that, specifically in the Mark passage with verse 24, I do believe, help me overcome my unbelief.
And it's the fact that, I mean, they almost seem like contradictory statements, right? Yeah.
The first is Mark chapter 9, there's this story in which a father has brought his son to the Father is claiming that his son is possessed by a spirit, it robs him of speech, and it seizes him and throws him on the ground, he foams in the mouth, he gnashes his teeth.
And this father says to Jesus, I asked your disciples to drive them out, and they could not.
The father is asked by Jesus, how long has he been like this from childhood? And then the father says, but if you can do anything...
And immediately the boy's father exclaimed, and I love this response, I do believe...
Help me overcome my unbelief, which seems to be, at many stages in my life, my mission verse.
I mean, I seem like I've had moments of these, but there's another passage that I want to contrast this with, and this comes from Matthew 21, it's the story of Jesus cursing the fig tree, and he curses the fig tree, it withers and dies, the disciples see it, and Jesus says to them, I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will do greater things than I do.
And so as we think about faith and doubt, you probably have conversations in what you do, I know I have conversations, about followers of Christ who struggle with doubt.
The thing that really strikes me about that, specifically in the Mark passage with verse 24, I do believe, help me overcome my unbelief.
And it's the fact that, I mean, they almost seem like contradictory statements, right? Yeah.
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