One of the things I have frequently struggled with in the 10 years I’ve been a Christian is faith. In Matthew 17:20 Jesus says to the disciples, ”And He said to them, “Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.” That is a comforting scripture to me because a mustard seed is pretty small, I bought one once just to see how tiny it was and to add to my comfort that I was not completely without faith.
Still there are places through out the New Testament where Jesus calls the disciples men of ”little faith” and that made my brain tilt. What difference does it make if they have “little faith” if nothing is impossible to the one who has mustard seed faith? Add to that the fact that I have heard tons of teaching on faith:
Know the promises in the Bible that apply to your situation and repeat them over and over until you believe and it will happen.
Fight for the promises of God to come to pass and to keep them in your life. If you’re not fighting, you don’t have faith.
If you suffer anything and don’t find the victory you don’t have enough faith.
Put faith in this healing message, put faith in this preacher, put faith in these words, put faith in this formula, put faith in this cloth, put faith in these pills.
At one point I recall telling God that I didn’t get the whole “faith” thing and I apologized to Him for being such a terrible let down. I mean, seriously, what kind of Christian doesn’t get “faith”? It was disappointing and frustrating to me and so I kind of steered clear of those who were always talking about faith because what they were saying never felt right in my heart. But in the last few weeks God has been showing me things that have really helped me a lot and suddenly I am feeling good about the whole faith thing.
I am doing this daily Bible reading program and right now I’m reading 2nd Samuel and 1st Chronicles (among other things). As I was reading about the life of David I was surprised at how he never did anything to make the word of God come to pass. He didn’t “war” with the promise. He didn’t run around repeating “I will be king, I will be king, I will be king.” He didn’t act like he was already the king even though, technically he was because he had been anointed king of Israel by Samuel. David just trusted God. He talked about God. His focus was always on God.
David was called a man after God’s own heart…and, to be honest, I’d really like to be known as a woman after God’s own heart. I love Him so much. Well, after seeing this and suddenly feeling free from the need to learn how to talk just right and from the need to do battle with promises and fight to keep what God says He’s given me – He walked right in and showed me the thing that blew me away the most.
It was a comment in my Bible on one of the passages where Jesus makes the “ye of little faith” comment and it said that Jesus was not commenting on the size of their faith but where their faith was. It went on to say that when Jesus had sent them out to minister, their faith was in God and Him alone, they knew they could do nothing of themselves that if they were going to see miracles it could only be by the power of God. They may have been nervous. Their faith may have been the size of a mustard seed BUT it was IN the right place.
Then, in this particular passage of scripture the disciples are asking Jesus why THEY couldn’t cast out a demon – not long before they were rejoicing because the demons were subject to them and there was a change in their focus – suddenly their faith was in themselves. God had used them mightily and done great things through them and their SELF-confidence grew rather than their God-confidence and it was then that Jesus said they had little faith.
The picture that came to my mind was a person taking a light bulb and sitting it in the glass dome of an oil lamp and trying to get the bulb to come on. The bulb is new and nothing is wrong with it, but it is connected to the wrong source of power so it can produce no light. If you take the same bulb and twist it into a lamp – you get light! It’s the same with faith – if you put faith in yourself and your abilities – your faith is little because your power source is very limited. If you take the same faith and put it in God suddenly the impossible is possible because the power source is unlimited.
Back to David – before he went out to meet Goliath, he told Saul that God had given him the victory over the bear and the lion and the same God would give him the victory over the giant. David knew God. He was not arrogant. He knew he did not overcome the bear and the lion in his own strength but that only by God’s hand did he have the victory. Because he knew God and because he had faith in God, nothing was impossible for him. His faith was in the right place.
My heart longs to know God like this, to know Him so well that my faith “naturally” rests in Him with this kind of confidence. How often am I prompted in my spirit to do something and draw back because of fear, because I don’t think I can do it. This is not only arrogance because I think it’s me who is going to do it, but it is also showing how much of a hindrance having faith in me and my abilities can be. Time and again, had I obeyed, lives could have been changed but because my faith was in the wrong place I was disobedient. Oh me of little faith.
It doesn’t have to be that way. I know it doesn’t. And my daily pursuit is to know God in such a way that my faith would always rest in Him – not just in some areas but in every area. He is the God of my faith and the place my faith belongs.
