Just some early morning thoughts from me to you…
The apostles said to the Lord, “Show us how to increase our faith.”
The Lord answered, “If you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘May you be uprooted and thrown into the sea,’ and it would obey you!
Luke 17:5-6 (NLT)
From that passage and that moment with his twelve Apostles, we see that the Lord asked them, as He asks us, to have faith. Faith in His promises, faith in what He says and does, and faith in what He did through Christ.
Faith that He has a plan and purpose for everything in your life and mine. Faith in everything He says. Faith in Him. Even when we don’t know how.
He asks us to believe without doubting, as written in James 1:6. To ask, to seek until we find, to knock because the door will be opened, recorded in Matthew 7: 7-8, to pray without ceasing, written in I Thessalonians 5: 16, believing that what we ask for, seek, knock and pray for—He will do something about.
But He also knows that we sometimes have a hard time believing. A hard time having faith. Trying to wrap our limited, finite brains around what our infinite all-knowing, all-powerful God says and does.
Sometimes like the disciple, Thomas, we need to see it to believe it. We find ourselves at a point where we just can’t seem to believe through faith alone, like Thomas in this moment where Christ reappeared after His Resurrection, as shown in these verses from the Gospel of John 20: 25-27—
Thomas: “Unless I see in His hands the mark of the nails, and place my fingers [there] and my hand into His side, I will never believe…
Lord: “He said to Thomas “Put your finger here, and see my hands and put out your hand and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.”
We’ve all been there. There are days where we are where Thomas was—
“Show me, Lord, I need to see your hands.”
There are days when we want to believe in His promises, His presence—but we’d like to see the nail holes and personally hear His voice of quiet assurance. There are days when we just seem to need a little more visible proof to go with the usual small dose of faith that we can muster up.
There are days when we’ve lost a big game. A day when someone near us has been fired, or we wondered if we would be, or we’ve been questioned—our integrity challenged, or we are wondering where the next step, or the next door is for us. A day when we’ve lost a child or another relative, for no good reason we can understand.
And some of those days can shake us to the core. And we need to believe. And we try. And our Christ tells us, as we read first above—“if you have faith even as small as a mustard seed”—it’s enough. Whatever faith you have, embrace it, hang on, hold on—it’s enough—He’s got the rest.
God gets it. He understands. But it’s really in those times where we begin to doubt, that we begin to grow in faith all the more—where little by little, we begin to believe, even in the face of everything that is in the world pulling us to disbelieve, telling us that we shouldn’t believe.
The disciples had their moments of doubt, despite Jesus standing right there before them, and despite witnessing all He had done. So we shouldn’t feel so bad, or a bit guilty, when we have our moments of doubt. Because we will and we do.
But Jesus told them—as He tells us—embrace whatever faith you have—even as small as a mustard seed—and hang on, hold on—He’s got it from there.
That’s all we need with Him—because He’ll take it home from that point on, with us and for us. Have faith—hang on to whatever you have no matter how big or small at any moment—hold on and He’ll finish it for you!
And as He does, watch your faith grow!
In His Name—Scott
Copyright 2016. Scott L. Whitaker. All rights reserved.
