His prayer filled touch

His prayer filled touch
In Luke 1:37 ‘Nothing is impossible with God’ (NIV) is spoken by the Angel Gabriel in response to Mary’s troubled query on how she, a virgin, can be with child.
In Mark 9:24 ‘ …all is possible for he who believes’ (NIV) is Jesus’ response to a crying troubled father. 
Jesus’ response in Mark 9:24 echoes the Angel Gabriel’s response to Mary-how? 
Both Jesus and Gabriel, who have been with the Father from the universe’s beginnings, speak to the broken hearted, the deeply troubled, about faith and trust. They, who have been with God the Father from the beginning, know that no word, not a groan or syllable to the Father can not be filled. They speak of what they have seen, touched and experienced. (As John speaks on in 1 John 1)
As eyewitnesses, they testify to the truth: He hears and answers as our prayers touch Him. Jesus and Gabriel tell those who are hurting, questioning or one thing is truly nesseart to touch God: pray. 

When the father in Mark brings his son to Jesus for healing of a possessing spirit. He asks Jesus have ‘pity on us’ and to ‘help us …if you can’

Jesus replied, ‘if you can? …all is possible for he who believes.’

The father speaks in this ‘exclamation’ 
‘I believe, help my unbelief.’ His language switches from using ‘us’ in his first plea to ‘the use of ‘my’ here. 
Why?

Because the father of the possessed child is praying. Now it is personal for the father; it is about his personal response to Jesus. 

The father’s crying out here is prayer. The word describing the words and the person of the father is ‘exclamation.’
“Exclamation” (NIV) should be translated as speaking in tears, a cry. He is crying over his unbelief. Unbelief can be seen as a defective, a flawed, a weak faith. And if unbelief stays unspoken, unshared, it would remain so. Yet moved to tears the father speaks it to Jesus. And by bringing this weakness to Jesus he and his son experience healing belief. He comes to Jesus, torn hurting, un-believing, and yet, paradoxically, also a believing man. 
Mary’s response echoes the Father’s- She is ‘the Lord’s servant…May it be to me as you said.’ Luke 1: 38. May it be to ‘me.’ It is now very personal to her. Jesus is to be her child, her son.

Both submit their hearts and doubts; their belief and unbeliefs, prayerfully to Him. And  new life is borne out of the father’s unbelief as his son is healed (Jesus lifts him by hand and restores him to life) and global, eternity saving life comes from the child Mary is to carry, this same spirit healing Jesus.

 Questioning, troubled and hurting people here pray. And their prayers are answered with life. Everlasting life. Belief. 

I am these people , hurting, troubled, believing and awash in unbelief. Their beautiful prayers are also mine- ‘I believe – help my unbelief.’ They model my struggle of belief and unbelief. And they tell me who to take this struggle to: Jesus.

In Mark’s gospel, when Jesus debriefs His disciples on why they couldn’t exorcise the unholy spirit, He tells them that this type of spirit can only come out through prayer. Prayer. 

That is all that is truly needed – a weak, crying, humble prayer- the prayers of a broken man, a loving father, or mother; a prayer that is ever reaching out to Jesus. 
This season: believe; yet if needed, state your unbelief. Prayerfully question and then reach for Him, as a child reaches for a parent. He will touch, reach back, in return. Whether by an Angel, a person, a father or a child, he will respond.
 Reach