Jesus said, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you."
Do you feel you have faith to command trees to be uprooted and replanted? I don't. Yet Jesus says the tiniest amount of real faith could effect such a thing.
Jesus demonstrated a disconcerting authority over the natural order – winds and waves, water and wine, fevers and diseased cells, and, yes, trees, yielded to his command. He suggests that we share this authority by virtue of our participation in the Life of God. I know of one person with strong healing gifts who took that authority at face value and began to pray that fearsome weather systems would weaken and turn, and seismic events settle. There's no way to trace outcomes of such prayers back to the prayer itself - too many factors at play - but why not pray in faith, with authority?
Jesus suggests we don’t have to have a LOT of faith to allow God to work miracles through us. We just need real faith. Perhaps Jesus’ somewhat cranky reply to his disciples’ request to “increase our faith” is to say that, where faith is concerned, it’s not quantity but quality that counts. We don’t have to whip ourselves into a frenzy of faith over “big” things – we are invited to bring our faith, however strong or weak it feels, to bear on any situation that challenges us.
And then we are to trust that the power and love of God that flows through us as children of God can do mighty things, far more than we can do, or even imagine. And when we join our faith with others in prayer, the flow of power is even greater.
What’s a BIG thing you’d like to invite the power and love of God to affect today? Say, government deadlock? Civil wars and famines? Cancer in a beloved? Your own mood?
What’s a small thing you’d like to invite the power and love of God to affect today? It’s always good to exercise our faith on the small things. As with muscles, our faith gets stronger when exercised.
We don't have to worry about how much faith we have – just step out with what you got. Jesus promised that “where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” (Mt 18:20) That means that when we invoke Jesus’ name in prayer, we are invoking his presence through his Spirit. That means He is praying with us – and that means one person in the group is praying with full and perfect faith. Whatever we add to that is sufficient to move many things, even if it’s only a tiny little mustard seed.
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