I Believe; Help My Unbelief

"...the father's famously paradoxical reply captures the tortured self-doubt of many sincere pray-ers. Belief and unbelief are mixed in most of us, and perhaps Mark would encourage us to notice that this common condition proved in the event to be no obstacle to his request being granted. At least he put his [unbelief] in the right perspective by not dwelling on it but asking Jesus to help with it. His belief, however uncertain, was all that was needed, and from this point he plays no further part in the narrative, so that all the attention falls where it should, on the power of Jesus." —R.T. France, The Gospel of Mark, 368.