Faith like a mustard seed: Great things in Small Packages

For all the great forces in our world, we have big units of measurement.  

Earthquakes, with the power to flatten buildings and take lives, are measured with the Richter scale, and the Moment Magnitude scale. Volcanoes, with eruptions powerful enough to blow apart mountains, wipe out cities, and turn hundreds of miles into wasteland are measured with the Volcano Explosion Index. A nuclear bomb’s explosive power, which is of course designed to destroy cities, is measured as TNT’s power in megatons.  

Now if you want a sense not just of the powerful but the big, let’s look outside our planet.

For example, did you know that the Earth could fit inside the Sun 960,000 times? If we could harness ten percent of the Sun’s power for just one second, it would be enough to power all of Earth’s annual energy needs. One second. And that’s nothing. It seems that our Sun is quite puny in comparison to some others.  

If we take the Hubble telescope and look outside our neighbourhood to another corner of this galaxy we call the Milky Way, we can see the Canis Majori star. This star is estimated to be over 1,400 times bigger than the Sun. That means 460 billion Earths would fit inside that star. I can’t really do justice to the size of us, our planet, or the stars.

Go search ‘Universe Size Comparison’ on YouTube. You will get a good sense of how small we are. In truth, the stars and the universe are too big for us. These are things measured on scales that our minds cannot really grasp. 

So we measure earthquakes, volcanoes, nuclear bombs, planets and stars on massive scales. Yet, some things are so powerful that they don’t need to be measured with these scales. In fact, it turns out that one of the most powerful forces that we have access to is measured in millimeters.  

On a morning not too long ago I asked God to give me more faith. I wanted Him to strengthen, to grow, to add to, to boost my faith. However you want to say it, I wanted more. I wanted more so I could be more and do more.

That night God reminded me that Jesus once said something about faith, so I looked it up.

“5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” 6 And the Lord said, “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.”” (Luke 17:5-6, The Holy Bible, ESV).  

I don’t know how many times I’ve read this piece of scripture. This time it struck different. Right away I honed in on the apostles request to Jesus. “Increase our faith!”

The apostles asked for more faith? .

These are the men who saw Jesus teach, heal people from the incurable in an instant, feed the 5,000, calm a storm, and cast out demons. These men lived with the Lord. And they asked for more faith? And no, not just Thomas. This was Peter, James, John, and all the rest too! They felt a lacking within themselves. They didn’t have the stuff.  They didn’t have what it took. They didn’t have enough to do what Christ was calling them into. They were asking the Lord for more faith; the very same thing I had just asked Him for. I find great comfort in this. I hope you do too. If you’ve ever prayed this kind of prayer, or if this is where your prayers are these days, don’t be discouraged or ashamed. Peter thought he needed more faith. Even the spiritual giants lived these sorts of days. 

Sadly I’ve read this passage before, and thought something like this: “I don’t have the faith to uproot a tree. I don’t have the faith to move a mountain. Nowhere near enough.” Unfortunately, I’ve taken Christ’s words to be the very opposite message from what He intended. There are times when Jesus chided, corrected, and rebuked the apostles. This seemed like it might be one of those moments. But that’s not what He does here. Jesus’s response is one of the greatest words of encouragement and hope for us all: “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed.”  

If you happen to have some mustard seeds in your home, go get one. Put that seed in your palm. Hold it in your fingers. See how small it is. If you don’t have any in the house, it’s well worth buying some just so you can do this.  

• Do you want God to change your life?

• Do you want to see His power?

• Do you long to be bold enough to share His message with others?

• Do you wish you believed His words in the Bible more readily and steadily?

A mustard seed is a millimeter big; sometimes two.

If you could make your faith tangible, could it fill two millimeters of space?

It’s not microscopic, but it is small;

small, small, small.

Jesus isn’t asking us for mountains of faith for Him to move a seed. He’s the one who will move the mountains. He isn’t asking for buckets of faith. He doesn’t even ask for a handful of faith. A seed’s worth of faith.  I like to believe I can bring a grain of faith to the table. 

“You could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea’ and it would obey you.” Another time, Jesus said our faith can make a mountain move with a seed’s worth of faith. Our Lord used humour and hyperbole to get points across, but please don’t cheat yourself and miss the great promise! Christ says come to Him with that much faith, and just watch what He will do!

It’s not about our big faith. It is about His great power. Great things come in small packages. That small package of faith is all you need. That much, and He will do great things. God is going to uproot some mulberry trees.  

Again, this is the promise from Christ to you: come to the Lord with your faith, however small, and He will honour it. He will do something. You do have to come with some faith. It just doesn’t have to be a lot.  

Now maybe this is just resonating with me. Maybe this is all basic to you and obvious to you. It’s a well known passage after all. But to me this is a deep truth with a profound promise. Jesus didn’t say things to fill up time, or because they were clever, or they sounded beautiful and poetic. If He said it, He meant it! And if He meant it, then it is true! He has all authority in heaven and on earth. 

So what do you and I do with this? Well, Hebrews 11:1 says faith is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." (The Holy Bible, ESV). The NIV says faith is “confidence in what we hope for.” I prefer NKJV’s use of ‘substance’, as the word can be translated from Greek.

Faith has substance. Faith is substance. Substance is something that can be seen. Substance is something you can point at and say, “There it is! I saw that!”  

Jesus’ brother James said this about the substance of faith, 

14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? 17 So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead (James 2:14-17, The Holy Bible, ESV).  

In other words, faith is not merely an internal thing within us. It is visible to ourselves and to others. It has substance. It is a substance. I don’t know if I can perfectly nail down the substance of faith for you, but allow me to try.  

When you forgive someone, or choose to forgive them, that is the substance of faith. You are believing that God will bring you justice. If the other person is a fellow Christian, God has paid the price and brought justice against all their wrongs through the cross and Jesus’ death. If the person who has wronged you is not a believer, justice will come on the day of judgment. 

When you are generous with your time, money, or talents, that is the substance of faith. You are showing trust that the Lord will honour what you’ve offered. In some way you may not ever see, He will use it for the benefit of the kingdom.  

When you choose to walk without worry and anxiety, that is the substance of faith. You are believing the Father is with you and watching over you. And if harm and great evil do come to your life, you know that because He has taken care of sin that you will be with Him one day in a place called paradise, where there will be no more pain, no more tears.  

When you are confident in your identity in Christ,

that is the substance of faith. You are believing you are forgiven by God and are greatly loved by Him; not because of the sin you did or didn’t do yesterday. You are clothed and covered in the righteousness of Jesus. You are not counting on your works in order to be good with God.  

When you pray with eager expectation,

that is the substance of faith. You are trusting God is listening to your prayers, that He cares about you, and He really has the power to do something about your situation. He may not say yes to your request, but He works all things for your benefit.  

When you are joyful,

that is the substance of faith. You are believing all the promises of God to be good, true, active, and powerful.  

When you share the gospel

with someone out in the world, that is the substance of faith.

When you don’t give up on marriage,

but entrust God to heal, that is the substance of faith.

When you confront a brother or sister in Christ with love and gentleness,

that is the substance of faith.

When you stop habitual sin because of God,

that is the substance of faith.

When you read your Bible daily,

that is the substance of faith.  

I could go on. I really could. I kind of want to, but I’ll stop. In all of these things, faith has substance because you’ve responded to God with trust and expectation that He is good and going to do something. May your faith have substance. You only need a millimeter’s worth. Our God is going to do great things. 

Another time with His disciples, Jesus taught that the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed. “It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” (Matthew 13:32). Our faith is like a mustard seed. The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed. And so I like to think that our faith is like the kingdom of heaven. It can start off a tiny thing, and God will grow it into something massive. So don’t worry about how small your faith is. He will do something with it. He can grow it into something big. Great things, small packages. 

Luke 17:5-6 is a call to faith. And let me tell you, we need people to respond to the call. And I will tell you why. Faith produces faith.

Have you ever met someone who prays for rain, and then carries an umbrella around on a sunny day? I have. Maybe it seems crazy, naive, or cheesy. But let me tell you, they are the ones who actually believe God sees, hears and cares. They are the ones who read His scripture and obey it. They are the ones who truly expect the Father to move among His people when they talk to Him.

After you talk to one of those people, you will come away like you’ve had a shot of espresso; energized and eager for what God’s going to do this day.

Faith multiplies faith.

That kind of faith reawakens in you the confidence of what you hope for, and assurance of what you do not see.

So walk in faith. Come to Him with whatever faith you have to offer. A seed’s worth is plenty. Our Lord will use it. Our God is going to do great things. Great things, small packages.