Mark 9:22

And oft-times it hath cast him both into the fire and into the waters, to destroy him: but if thou canst do anything, have compassion on us, and help us.

If thou canst do anything ... By such a remark, the father of the afflicted boy would have made the burden of responsibility for his son's healing to rest upon the Lord; but he was not correct in such an insinuation, as Jesus' following words quickly showed. There are many in all generations who would like to shift the burden of all betterment to some other than themselves, but they too are wrong. A great deal of the improvement of the human condition is inherently incumbent upon the needy themselves, who under every circumstance of whatever extremity must first do everything possible to alleviate their own affliction, that being the basic and invariable precondition to any effective help from without. Here, the thing required of the father was faith in the Lord.

Have compassion on us, and help us ... The use of possessive pronouns here is very poignant and touching and shows that the whole family of the unfortunate lad had identified themselves with the afflicted and considered his distress as also their own. This is an expressive picture of all members of a family suffering with one of its members.