In the mid-nineteenth century, Johann Christoph Blumhardt
pastored a small church in a German village. There
was nothing exceptional about his work—nothing, that is,
until a couple in the church told him about problems they
were having with their daughter. Pastor Blumhardt met with
them to pray and to visit with the daughter. Pastor Blumhardt
realized that he might be dealing with a demon like those he
had read about in the New Testament. Though Germany’s
historical-critical scholarship was preparing to explain
away demons in the modern world, here in a small German
parish Blumhardt revealed Jesus’ power in an exorcism.

As in Jesus’ day, the good news of liberation from
a demon’s power spread quickly. People came to see
what new thing was happening—what power had been
unleashed by Pastor Blumhardt’s ministry. God was indeed
doing a new thing, and Pastor Blumhardt wanted to be
faithful to it. He began to realize that many people came for
the wrong reasons. He began to tell the “thrill seekers” that
the exorcism wasn’t a healing for its own sake but a sign
meant to point people toward God’s kingdom.

The miracle of Jesus walking on water immediately
follows the feeding of the five thousand in Matthew’s Gospel.
Jesus knows what Pastor Blumhardt learned centuries later:
We are often more interested in the miraculous signs of God’s
power than we are in the kingdom movement toward which
they point us. Jesus calls the disciples oligopistoi—“littlefaiths.”
He is talking to all of us. It’s one thing to see the
power of God and know it’s real; it’s something else entirely
to trust the Lord who asks for everything, even as the storm
rages about you.

By Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove from The Upper Room: 60 Days of Prayer for General Conference 2016