“Lord, show me _______, and that will be enough for me.”
Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time?
John 14:8–9a NIV
This passage really strikes a chord in me because it occurred to me how often we as Christians say things similar to what Philip said to Jesus. Prior to this exchange between Philip and Jesus, Jesus was comforting the disciples by saying that there was a place in heaven for them, and that Jesus was the Way, the Truth and the Life. However, Philip had his doubts, and asked Jesus this question. In this exchange, what Philip was essentially asking of Jesus was, “Lord, I don’t quite believe you at the moment, but if you show us this Father you keep telling us about, I might just trust you in this.”
We all, just like Philip, have our doubts about God. Some of us Christians doubt God and His promises during our hard times, some of us doubt His existence in view of everything that’s going on in the world, and some of us doubt just about everything about God. In these situations, it is not unusual that we find ourselves asking questions similar to what Philip asked Jesus.
“Lord, only if You do ________, I’ll believe that You exist.”
“Lord, I will trust You with ________ only if You gave/showed me ________.”
The problem with asking these questions is that they never truly satisfy us deep down. Even if God chose to answer our prayers in the way we wanted , and we are satisfied with our belief in Him at that instance, there is going to be something else, something bigger that pops up somewhere along the way of our not-so-merry lives that will cause us to question him again. We will then repeat this cycle over and over again, and when God does not answer our prayers the way we want, we go back to doubting God until the next cycle comes along. Where then is our trust in God? Where then is this faith that we so profess?
What shook me the most is Jesus’ reply to Philip in verse 9.
“Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time?”
John 14:9a NIV
This is in essence Jesus’ reply to all our demands of “show me” or “give me”. This is something we all have to ask ourselves before we allow ourselves to embark on this toxic cycle of unbelief. Have we not known God before this? Have we not heard of or experienced God ourselves? Have we not had the Holy Spirit, one third of the triune God with us since the moment we accepted Christ? Have we not all experienced some sort of goodness or faithfulness on God’s part in our lives? Do we not know God? If your answer to all of the questions above is a resounding “no”, I genuinely pray that one day you will come to see His hand in your life. But what of the rest of us who have? Are we not without excuse to have unwavering faith even in the face of uncertainty or difficulty (as much as humanly possible)?
As I end off this sharing I would like to leave us all with this thought: to think twice about what we ask of God. Even at its most seemingly ineffective, the prayers and the questions that we direct at God at the very least reflect our relationship with Him. Think about how we’ve been treating Him, in our prayers and thoughts daily, and reflect on whether our constant unbelief in His sovereignty and wisdom is reflective of who He actually is.
