So Jesus, this is what it comes down to. You (that is, God) make all kinds of promises. You’ve got to do that because if you didn’t, I mean, who’d get on board or behind you? To be fair, you don’t promise the good life as much as getting through life. In the end, you say there is no end. You talk about it like it’s a big party. Nice to think it’d be that way.

And to get through this life, you ask for this thing called faith. How is that just wishful hope for something to hang on to, even if it’s not real? Oh, you’re good at telling us how much a person has to have. Mustard-seed size, you say. That kind of example may have worked in your day, but if you are going to take me down this exercise of improbability, give it to me in some way I can wrap my head around it.

You Need More Faith

Exercise is certainly where Jesus is going with this. It all started when his inner circle, The Twelve, asked him how to get more faith. Apparently, they had some but were looking for a super-size load. People get this kind of line all the time, like, “you wouldn’t have so much stress or anxiety in your life if you only had more faith.”

Baloney. Ok, that’s not biblical or in the passage, but in effect, that’s what Jesus’ response amounted to. He gives this example of a mustard seed and compares it to faith. Today we don’t find them out on the highways and byways of life but open your pantry for goodness’ sake. Seeds aren’t the tiniest things around, but they’re small enough,1-2 millimeters maybe. In your soup pot, they’d disappear fast. Yet they add distinct flavor to your dish. Not much needed, but big impact.

Is it the size of the seed then that matters, or rather does the potency within that seed open up new ways of tasting your pot of soup? The mustard seed seasons the soup. Good tasting soup is relished as it fills the stomach. Beyond diminished hunger, it brings satisfaction and enjoyment. There’s power in the seed, and the next time you make your soup, you’ll use it again. In all, the size of the seed is not significant but the spice it adds is.

Exercise Your Faith Then

Jesus’ next words continue to be way out there. He said if you had faith like a mustard seed, then you could take a tree, uproot it, and plant it in the sea. What would be the point in that?

Faith is given such that the impossible, sometimes what seems at first glance even ridiculous, can be made real. Inherent in it is you’ve got to use it to make things happen. Faith is not a matter of quantity, but quality, the kind of bet-your-life-on-it in moving forward.

Planting trees in the middle of bodies of water ranks with higher levels of the ridiculous. Jesus was teaching that’s the power of potent faith. What seems like it’d never happen, does.

When people are so lost they are looking up at bottom, they still find a love that accepts them unconditionally. While the world rejects you, Jesus sees in you something you might not have ever seen in yourself. When doubt tells you there’s no way, faith transforms it into a new way.

Faith requires watchful, eyes-wide-open, be prepared to be surprised by God. Again, no promises are given life that will turn out as you thought.  But it is impactful, making the world into what is beyond the imagination, like dropping tiny seeds into a soup pot or letting them fall by the roadside to grow into huge bushes. You won’t know it until you taste or see it. When you do, you’ll know it was empowered by a seed of faith.

Serve, Not Served

Jesus, this quality over quantity thing might work. Even so, in the day to day we need some support to hold us. Yet again, speaking of the ridiculous, you compare your people to servants who never get thanked for their service. What’s with this? Everyone needs to know they are appreciated in some respect. So you tell us faith alone should be sufficient but we never get so much of a thanks for the effort? Why not?

All of this comes down to the same thing. Exercise faith, work it into the very being of your mindset and soul. Let it become a part of you, inseparable from who you are as your heart and lungs. Watch it work. See the power it has in your world and in God’s.

Granted, people are behavioral and often operate based on reward and consequences. However, if faith becomes so integral to who you are, all you do follows that. Whatever you do, however you work your life, will come from there.

We all know what it looks like. Could you imagine thanking the fish for swimming in the ocean or birds for flying in the air? They were made for that, no thanks to them. In the same way, people who exercise faith live in expectation of what God does. Not that they were made that way, but rather that’s how they live as a natural expression of their faith.

Jesus himself said he, “did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.” For the faith-filled, service is just what they do. Sounds ridiculous but that’s how it’s done. If you serve for the sake of at least being thanked, who is being served?

The disciples asked how to increase their faith. Jesus answered on how faith is worked. Only a little is needed but is powerful to make transformations in expectations of what we do and what God does.

Luke 17: 5-10



Named 2024 Notable Book Award by Southern Christian Writers Conference!

The Trouble with Jesus: Considerations Before You Walk Away by Constance Hastings

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