It had been three days since Jesus, the Great Shepherd, had been crucified, and just as He’d said they would be, the sheep were scattered. Each man went to tend to his own business until they could figure what they should do next, all feeling disillusioned, heartbroken, and demoralized. We tend to do the same thing when we feel our expectations have been let down. We wander off, seeking something else to devote our attentions and efforts to, scarcely considering whether or not our expectations were right to begin with. Jesus never said that He had come to restore the Kingdom to Israel; they just assumed He would, based on their understanding of prophecy in the light of current events. To the contrary, He told them more than once that He would be taken and slain, and that He would rise again, and when Jesus appeared, He found that they were not waiting in hope for His resurrection, nor in faith for His plan to be accomplished. He found them rather in a state of discouragement and disbelief. He straightly reproved them and diagnosed their problem: their hearts were slow to believe.
The slow heart borders on faithless, and may even be faithless, because it is skeptical in nature. This is a serious condition. Faith isn’t supposed to be slow. Where disbelief, doubt and skepticism endure, none of the blessings of an active and vibrant faith are present. Stubborn doubt obstructs good things from happening, because it obstructs the doubtful from taking requisite action. The slow heart takes no comfort in the promises of God, or in assurances in the Word of God. The slow heart needs signs and proofs, but isn’t there an abundance of them in Scripture? Didn’t the LORD show signs and wonders to the Israelites and they yet doubted?
The slow heart must be confronted with the Word of Him who cannot lie (Numbers 23:19, Titus 1:2, Hebrews 6:18) and its doubts prayed down, repeatedly if need be, in order for simple belief to awaken and emerge.
In contrast, the heart that is quick to believe is blessed indeed. It is a heart with simple faith, childlike in nature, which is precisely how we must receive the kingdom (Mark 10:15). Without it we will never enter in. The quick heart is the heart that knows the peace of God most deeply, and most perfectly. It is the one who knows, beyond a doubt, that God is in control. It is the one who will not panic when things go wrong and who knows that God is sovereign. It is the one who, rather than sinking into depression or nihilism, knows beyond a doubt that God made him or her for a reason. All because they believe. A quick heart doesn’t have to be dragged, cajoled, bargained with or bribed; it simply believes. It does not need to understand the matter to the nth degree. It is grounded in Jesus and standing on His Word. The quick heart is the one that asks, “Why not?” and “Why not me?”, and “Why not now?”
Don’t delay to believe. Evict doubt on the authority of God who tells us that all His promises, in Jesus, are “Yes, and amen.”