I was physically sitting in Bible study, but my heart was sitting in the pit of despair. As the lesson from Mark chapter 9 collided with what was happening in my life, the Holy Spirit began to stir and move.
My heart began to beat faster as we read the story in Mark 9:17-29. I related to the parent of a son that was being tormented by demonic influences. Along with the father in the story, I was also saying to Jesus, “But if You can do anything, take pity on us and help us!”
I understood the desperation of this father.
Jesus said to the father, “If You can?’ All things are possible for the one who believes.” Immediately the boy’s father cried out and said, “I do believe; help my unbelief!”
In the middle of a room with other people sitting around me, I encountered God. My heart acknowledged the truth - - I had lost my belief that God was able. My situation seemed too dark, too deep, too impossible.
We finished the Bible study and I went home and read the story again. I noticed the story was also found in Matthew.
Matthew 17:19-20 Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” And He said to them, “Because of your meager 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 for you.”
With tears running down my face, words poured out from a place deep within my soul to Almighty God. The desperation that consumed me formed into words, “God, I don’t have faith even the size of a mustard seed to believe that You can heal my son. I don’t really believe You are able.”
Even as I spoke those words, I sensed a tiny glimmer of light shining in a corner of my soul. I began again to confess, “I don’t have faith the size of a mustard seed, but I think I have faith the size of a poppy seed. That’s all the faith I have. God, will that work? Is it enough?”
I was literally looking at the period at the end of the verse in the open pages of my Bible. I realized that I did have faith in God, but it was so small, so decimated. My faith seemed the size of a dot on the page.
In that moment, I felt God smile. I sensed the compassion of a Father who was listening to His child cry out with true honesty, in the depth of her despair. He heard my confession about the condition of my faith as I laid it out before Him.
And like a Father who longs for His daughter to come to Him with her problems, I sensed His words deep within my soul, “Yes, My child… it is enough.” They were said gently, without reproach or condemnation. Waves of His comfort and His peace washed over me over and over as I released my grief and despair into His hands.
Nothing changed instantly. My son still struggled; the chaos still raged. But a seed of hope had been planted in my soul. Over the next days, I could feel the tiny bud of hope push through the dark soil and surface above the ground. The circumstances around me didn’t radically change, but I did.
My faith that started as small as a poppy seed has grown into a tree of faith as described in Psalm 1. Over the years, I have watched God work big miracles in my son and in the lives of many other people. I walk in the harvest of big faith in my big God.
Every story of victory contains an element of struggle, of suffering. Each experience begins with a seed of faith falling into the ground, dying, and bringing forth new life in the dark soil. With tenacity, faith pushes its way to the surface to grow in the sun. Today, people remark at the strength of my faith. They do not know the struggle that produced it. Deep faith often grows in the soil of deep struggle.
Is there something you need to acknowledge where unbelief has settled? Have you believed the lie that your problem is too big, or that your sin or situation is too deep? Does God feel too far away?
Today, ask God for faith. Even if your faith is the size of the period on the end of a sentence, Jesus says that tiny, little faith, when placed in His hands, can move mountains!
Share how we can pray for your "mountain" today to be moved...