Got faith?
How's it holding up? Is it somewhere below your boot as you trudge down life's road, or are you resting pretty high up on the mountain top?
Faith is hard. Some people have oodles of it with nary a need for reassurance, while others couldn't find a grain of belief even if a miracle unfolded before their very eyes.
I'd say most Christians fall somewhere in the middle. But how much faith do we really need?
In Luke 17 the apostles ask Jesus to increase their faith! With an exclamation point! Jesus tells them, "If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you."
Huh. Wow. A mustard seed is certainly tiny. And a mulberry tree is huge. They can grow up to 60 feet tall, and their roots spread invasively. To uproot it and place it in a sea would have been a monumental task. Yet all we need is a mustard-seed-sized faith to accomplish this?
To understand more about what Jesus is saying here we must first learn about the mustard plant. From the tiniest seed (1 mm thick) this massive swathe of yellow brush will grow, which produces more tiny seeds that the birds then eat and spread even further, far and wide.
A seed-sized faith can quickly grow, and grow, and grow!
Yet, even if we start small, it couldn't hurt to have more, right?
Here are a few things you can do to grow your faith--(with a plant focus 🌱... just because):
Study: Soak yourself in the word of God. You could try a daily devotion. They are available in books, podcasts, through email or even text!
Practice: We can study the word all we want, but if we aren’t putting what we learn into practice, how do we grow? We need to follow the sun!
Pray: You can pray for more faith. This is how we reach our stalks out for what we need.
Trust: Trust God, especially through the hard times. Know that he will water you in the drought, cover you from the frost, maybe even prune you when needed. God will make sure you have enough light.
Serve: Service is so important. Jesus placed himself in a servant role many times during his ministry. When we serve others, we are being fed.
Doing just a few of these things will help mature our roots so that we can grow a stronger faith.
~Abbie Velez
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