Jesus Saw God’s Power

There Is Something Greater Than the Problem – Part 2

Platform: No Longer Common — The Spiritual Development Platform

In Part 1, The Crowd Saw a Problem, I focused on something that changed the way I read this story. Everyone standing around Jesus seemed focused on what was wrong. There was a boy suffering, a desperate father, disciples who had tried and failed, and an evil spirit that appeared to be controlling the situation. Jesus saw all of that too, but He didn’t seem nearly as impressed by the problem as everyone else was.

That’s what I want to look at now because the second half of this story reveals something I believe we’ve gotten wrong for a long time.

Television, movies, culture, and sometimes even people of faith have painted darkness as incredibly powerful while portraying the people of God as almost helpless against it. We’ve seen enough images of evil being frightening, intimidating, and nearly impossible to overcome that, without realizing it, we can begin carrying some of those same images into our faith. But when I actually read what happened with Jesus, it gives us a very different picture.

The Spirit Put on a Show

As the father brought his son to Jesus, the evil spirit didn’t quietly disappear. The Bible tells us that it knocked the boy to the ground and threw him into a violent convulsion. Think about what that must have looked like to everyone standing there. The situation suddenly became louder, more visible, and probably even more frightening than it had been moments before.

That’s what problems have a way of doing. The louder they become, the more attention we give them, and the more attention we give them, the more powerful they can begin to look. That’s especially true when we’re dealing with something we don’t understand or don’t know how to handle. If you were standing in that crowd, your eyes probably would have been fixed on the boy on the ground because everything happening in front of you would have been demanding your attention.

Jesus, however, didn’t panic. He didn’t back away, and He certainly didn’t behave as though He had finally encountered something too powerful for Him. The Bible simply says that Jesus rebuked the evil spirit, healed the boy, and gave him back to his father. For something that looked so dramatic and powerful moments earlier, Jesus dealt with it without giving it nearly the attention everyone else probably thought it deserved.

That caught my attention.

We Have Given Darkness Too Much Credit

The more I studied this passage, the more I began thinking about the pictures we’ve been given of demons, evil spirits, and darkness. The majority of what we’ve seen portrayed makes darkness look incredibly powerful. The demon is terrifying, everyone is frightened, the battle is dramatic, and evil appears nearly unstoppable while God’s power somehow looks like it is struggling to keep up.

That’s not the picture the Bible gives us.

The spirit was certainly destructive. It was real, it was hurting this young boy, and it was creating pain for an entire family. The disciples had also been unable to do anything about it, so I’m not suggesting the problem wasn’t serious. What I am saying is that the disciples’ inability to deal with the problem did not mean God was unable to deal with it.

That’s an important distinction because sometimes we accidentally measure God’s ability by our ability. If we can’t fix something, we begin believing it can’t be fixed. If we don’t know what to do, we assume there is nothing that can be done. If something overwhelms us, we can start behaving as though it must overwhelm God too. But just because you don’t know how to deal with something doesn’t mean God doesn’t know how to deal with it. Just because you haven’t found an answer doesn’t mean an answer doesn’t exist.

Jesus never confused the disciples’ limitation with God’s limitation.

Neither should we.

The Story Was Never About the Power of Darkness

This is the lesson I don’t want us to miss: the story was never about the power of darkness.

If it were, the Bible would have ended by telling us how amazed everyone was by the evil spirit and everything it had done. Instead, after Jesus healed the boy, Scripture tells us that the people were gripped with awe as they witnessed a majestic display of God’s power. In other words, the thing that looked so powerful throughout the story wasn’t the thing everyone was talking about when the story was over.

There was an evil spirit, but there was something greater. The disciples had limitations, but there was something greater. The father had reached the end of what he knew to do, but there was something greater. The crowd saw something frightening, but Jesus demonstrated something greater.

God’s power.

That’s what the story was pointing toward all along. Darkness may have been what brought everyone together that day, but God’s power was what everyone remembered when it was over.

Don’t Confuse Your Limitation With God’s Limitation

This is where the lesson becomes practical for you and me because there will be situations we don’t know how to handle. There will be problems we don’t immediately know how to solve, and there may even be spiritual matters we aren’t mature enough, prepared enough, or knowledgeable enough to address yet. The disciples weren’t ready for this particular situation either, and Jesus’ response tells me they still had some growing to do.

Their failure, however, didn’t change who Jesus was.

Sometimes we need more growth. Sometimes we need more understanding, or more time learning from the Master. There is nothing wrong with admitting that we’re not ready for something yet. The problem begins when we look at something we can’t handle and conclude that it can’t be handled at all.

That’s common thinking.

No-Longer-Common thinking recognizes the difference between “I can’t” and “God can’t.” Those are two entirely different statements. I may not know what to do with this situation yet. I may not have the answer. I may even have tried and failed like the disciples did. But none of that gives me permission to reduce God’s ability to the level of my own.

Common vs. Uncommon

Common: Sees something overwhelming and assumes it is too powerful.
Uncommon: Recognizes that being overwhelmed doesn’t mean God is overwhelmed.

The Crowd: Magnifies what darkness is doing.
The Set Apart: Pays attention to what God can do.

Average Thinking: Measures the problem against personal ability.
Uncommon Thinking: Measures the problem against God’s power.

Typical: Says, “I can’t handle this, so it can’t be handled.”
Growing Faith: Says, “I may not be able to handle this yet, but that doesn’t mean God can’t.”

The Uncommon Truth

The crowd watched an evil spirit throw a boy to the ground and saw something frightening. Jesus looked at the same situation and saw something completely subject to the authority of God. That’s the perspective I want—not one that pretends problems aren’t real or ignores evil, difficulty, and circumstances that are beyond my ability, but one that refuses to give those things more credit than they deserve.

The disciples couldn’t handle the problem, but Jesus could. The spirit looked powerful, but God was greater. And when everything was over, the crowd wasn’t standing around talking about how powerful darkness had been. They were standing in awe of what they had just witnessed God do.

That’s the picture I want us to remember the next time we’re standing in front of something that looks bigger than we are. It may very well be bigger than you. It may be beyond your experience, your knowledge, your resources, and even your current level of faith. But none of those things determine what God is capable of doing.

There was never a problem bigger than God’s power.

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