“A man is made by his beliefs.  As he believes, so he is.” – Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

“If one has faith… one has everything.” – Ramakrishna

“Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move.  Nothing will be impossible for you.” – Jesus speaking in Matthew 17:20

“And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” – Hebrews 11:6 NIV

When you read the Scripture verse above and survey the landscape of your life right now, what comes to mind?  Have you been moving any mountains lately?

I can tell you straight up my friends that when I look at the barriers and obstacles within my own life right now, many of them take on the characteristics of a mountain – firmly planted and deeply entrenched – some of them reaching heights that seem impossible to scale.

Then, I contemplate what Jesus said about the power of tiny faith, small enough to fill a mustard seed and I wonder how insignificant or microscopic my own must be in comparison.  If nothing is impossible with such minuscule faith, then mine must be imperceptible.

Jesus knew that faith here in this world would be scarce and hard to come by.  He told a parable in Luke 18 about a widow who was in desperate need of justice.  She went to a judge who Jesus describes as a man who “neither feared God nor cared about men.” Time and time again, he refused to hear the widow’s case or rule on it.

But she was persistent, so finally the judge ruled in her favor.  He said, “Even though I don’t fear God or care about men, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see she gets justice so that she won’t eventually wear me out with her coming!”

Jesus finishes the parable by asking those who were listening to think about what this unjust judge finally did and to compare that to what a just God who loves “His chosen ones who cry out to Him day and night.”  Jesus asks, “Will He keep putting them off?” 

Then, He says something profound and quite revealing – “I tell you, He will see they get justice and quickly.  However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?”

Faith was important to Jesus.  He did great miracles of healing and resurrection based on it.  He chastised His disciples for their lack of it at times.  He even prayed for it to be strengthened in others.

It is so important, that the word “faith” is mentioned over 270 times in the Scriptures.  If you add derivative words like “faithful”, “faithfully”, and “faithfulness”, the number grows to 514.

Faith is a critical ingredient to this life, so critical in fact, that it centers on why we are here in the first place – to learn more about it and to grow it spiritually while in human form.  This world provides the perfect venue, the ideal setting and circumstances that put it to the test, that force it to grow or become non-existent. 

The critical nature of faith is tied directly to our individuality, to our own personal choices and revelations.  It cannot be given or furnished to us by others or measured in terms of a group.  We are not awarded it based on our affiliations or allegiance to some religious organization.  It is something very personal and intimate.  It places us in the center of a one-on-one relationship with the Creator.

Another aspect of faith’s critical nature is the ambiguity that comes with it – the hidden, covert features of it that force us to make decisions based on trust and belief – not on obvious facts and overt realities.  When you think about it, faith wouldn’t be necessary if God in all His glory revealed himself to mankind – making it perfectly clear who He was and what His intentions for us were in the long run.

Or would it?

Think of being a disciple, a follower of Christ (God in the flesh), and witnessing the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand.  How could one ever forget such a miracle?  How would you ever doubt that God was real – that He truly existed!

Yet, later that night on a boat caught in a strong wind, they mistook him for a ghost walking on the water.  They didn’t even recognize him as they struggled with their fears about all that was happening around them.  After he climbed into the boat and the winds ceased, the Bible says the disciples were “completely amazed, for they had not understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened.”

Think of Elijah, witnessing the power of God in the form of fire raining down from heaven to consume the altars of Baal!  Wouldn’t witnessing such an event provide you with proof beyond a shadow of a doubt that God was all He said He was?  No more blind faith would be needed!

Yet…days later Elijah fell into a deep depression – begging God to end His life.

Would God revealing Himself to us directly eliminate our need of faith entirely?  I guess the answer to that is no – based on the examples above.  Think in your own life – how quickly one can forget God’s active, loving involvement.  How often did the healing from sickness, the avoided accident, or the sustenance that came out of nowhere get lost or glossed over?  How easy was it to overlook His grace and focus on His apparent absence in things that mattered most to you?

Does simply being human offer such a great obstacle to seeing, to believing, to remaining faithful?

The atheist will tell you that this difficulty is an obvious one – planted in the very fact that there is no God in the first place!  Faith and the concepts behind it are simply there to convert and brainwash the masses – giving away their time and money to a religious organization that uses fear and guilt to control them.  They see faith as one of the largest scams ever perpetrated.  They see it as the instigator of conflict in this world – the reason behind wars and killings of all kinds.

How can something so good and precious be at the center of such evil?

That in and of itself might give us a glimpse of faith’s critical nature!  Our faith is so important that evil will go to great lengths to see it snuffed out and destroyed.

Can you see it my friend?  Can you see how the structures of this life are composed to either provide great opportunities to strengthen faith or to bring it to its knees – to fortify it or to wipe it out entirely?  Can you see how it can be portrayed as nothing more than a myth or seen as the most critical reason behind our journey here?

So….How will YOU choose to view faith?  Like a critical component to this life or the grandest farce ever known?  Will you ask like the man whose daughter was dying (Mark 9:24), “Lord, help me in my unbelief!” as you struggle in your humanness to understand its ambiguity….or will you choose to look at the horrors of this life and see faith as nothing but a scam?

Will you allow it to move the mountains in your life – changing you in the process – or will you simply choose to let it go?

Regardless of how you choose – can you see faith’s personal and individual significance?  Can you connect it to why this world exists as it does and the major role it plays in our journey, our destiny, and our created purpose? 

My prayer is this critical component of our life’s mission be fortified, strengthened, and embraced by you always.  May you continually see the obstacles posed by this world as great opportunities to grow it into something that changes your life and the lives of others – deepening your relationship and trust in the Creator who is the Author and Sustainer of it.

And may you always move the mountains in your life with it 🙂

God bless!