Seriously?

Think about it. What normally happens before a tough conversation has to happen? One person does something that has sadly turned out to be a repeating problem. Another person has to step in and have one of those tough conversations. I can only imagine both the internal and external words that are part of this realization. Typically, someone has become exasperated enough to realize that a tough talk needs to occur.

Seriously?

No word better expresses the emotion of realizing this. And you know what? Even Jesus went through this. Read these words from the gospel of Matthew

At the foot of the mountain, a large crowd was waiting for them. A man came and knelt before Jesus and said, 15 "Lord, have mercy on my son. He has seizures and suffers terribly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. 16 So I brought him to your disciples, but they couldn't heal him."

17 Jesus said, "You faithless and corrupt people! How long must I be with you? How long must I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me." 18 Then Jesus rebuked the demon in the boy, and it left him. From that moment the boy was well.

19 Afterward the disciples asked Jesus privately, "Why couldn't we cast out that demon?"

20 "You don't have enough faith," Jesus told them. "I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it would move. Nothing would be impossible." Matthew 17:14-20

This must have been big because this story shows up in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And all in the same sequence. Right after Jesus takes Peter, James, and John to the top of a mountain and a miraculous transfiguration occurs. Jesus (appears) to be talking with Moses and Elijah, both dead for centuries, and these three disciples witness it all. Upon coming down from the mountain our story infolds. We see Jesus get frustrated at the lack of ability the disciples previously had. He then explains to them that this is an issue of faith. Other gospels relate it even deeper to a lack of faith caused by a lack of prayer.

The Greatest Indicator of our Faithfulness will be our Prayerfulness

The disciples (and us) have a tendency to significantly underestimate the power of prayer in their life. Jesus describes this as them having a "poverty of faith", in essence, a lack of what is essential for the basic functioning of faith. He talks about this mustard seed several times in the gospel. It's quality, not quantity. So the humanity of Jesus shows up with His disciples. Let's talk about what we can learn from this.

The disciples were at the point where they should have known better. They should have known Jesus better. They should have known of the necessity of their faithfulness and prayerfulness better.