I walk the line

Luke 8:40-56
“Now when Jesus returned, the crowd welcomed him, for they were all waiting for him. And there came a man named Jairus, who was a ruler of the synagogue. And falling at Jesus’ feet, he implored him to come to his house, for he had an only daughter, about twelve years of age, and she was dying.”
(49) “While he was still speaking, someone from the ruler’s house came and said, ‘Your daughter is dead; do not trouble the Teacher anymore.”
Upon reading this story this morning, it struck me how limited our faith is.
I am sure that the people from the Jairus’ house were very supportive of him going to find Jesus to heal his daughter from this horrible sickness. They most likely believed that if He just came to her, He was entirely able to stop the fatal sickness right in its tracks and that she would be made well. But, the moment that the child dies, they give up hope and tell him to stop bothering Jesus any longer. They have faith that He has power over sickness, but not over death.
Now, I don’t mean to sound arrogant. I would have a very hard time actually believing that Jesus would come and raise one of my family members from the dead. It is just interesting how up to a certain point, we have great faith in God, and what He is able and even willing to do. But we draw these lines in the sand, and if he does not cross them, or does not cross them as soon as we’d like, or in the way we’d like, our faith cries “uncle” and we give up right on the spot. We disguise our lack of faith, insisting that we are "bothering" Jesus with our requests, and claiming that He is much too high and far off to be concerned with our respectively small problems.
It is amazing how faith is the exception, and how our hearts are so miserably bent toward doubt.


Lord I believe, help my unbelief.
will you erase the lines I've drawn?