“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.” - Matthew 17:20
Growing up hearing the powerful message that having faith as small as a mustard seed can move mountains always felt so empowering! Do you really mean that it only takes a spec of faith to move something so massive? It seems like a magnificent event from a deep and strong relationship with God where the impossible becomes possible. It’s a wonderful story about the powerfulness of our God in times when the mountains seem impossible to move and yet God finds a way to come through for us. It had become a cliche for me before I approached the mountain of grief. It was just one of those things I said in passing as encouragement but not something that I fully understood to a certain depth.
What was once a view of incredible faith became an ache in my heart. Something the Sunday school stories don’t mention is how depressing a mustard seed-sized faith can feel. When that’s all you have, it is the most hopeless feeling I’ve ever experienced. Having only a mustard seed worth of faith doesn’t feel good. Walking through grief and witnessing all my worst nightmares come to life dwindled my faith down to a size so miniature that there felt like no real connection between me and my creator.
After losing both my grandfathers, my sister, and my dad in a short amount of time my belief that God was good was nonexistent. How could I put my faith in the only one that could’ve saved me from the heartache is was experiencing at that time? There was only one thing that I could cling to… Heaven. I had to believe in Heaven and eternal life. If I didn’t believe and put my faith in the promise that my family was in eternal glory with Jesus and I would see them again, I would’ve had no reason to continue with my own life. The darkness would’ve consumed me and invited me into itself eternally, but Heaven shined a light into my life. Maybe God wasn’t good enough to save my loved ones from death because death is so much better.
I spent many days angry with God and simultaneously faithful that my family was with Him in Heaven. Spending day after day refusing to speak to Him out of a broken heart and also using my imagination to picture my sister running in a beautiful flower-filled field, something her earthly body was never able to do. She’s glowing, more than I’ve ever seen her, and laughing without a care. I picture my father with his father and brother having a joy-filled conversation with Jesus. I picture them all living in their eternal warm light with the same good God that I’m upset with.
The depression that I experienced in my grief weighed me down so much that I
truly could not see the value of the size of my faith. All I had was a mustard seed. All I had was my faith in Heaven. I underestimated the strength of my own faith, I did not comprehend that it took me so much courage to hang tightly to my faith in Heaven and that the mustard seed that I was gripping so tightly to would eventually grow into a beautiful and endless field of bright yellow flowers. It becomes something so spectacular and glorious that it’s hard to remember the time when the seed was nothing but a spec.
Think of it like you’re hanging off the edge of a cliff, but only one finger or one hand has a good grasp, you dangle there for some time with just enough strength to hang on. That’s what it’s like to cling to a small amount of faith, it is just enough to keep you from falling to the depths below but not enough to lift yourself up. Eventually over time, instead of growing weak, God tends to you and reaches His mighty hand down to rescue you and now with the beauty of your endurance and strength built up in your faith, you can now reach down and be the hand to the next person. Helping pull them up from the cliff they’re hanging from. It’s a beautiful picture of how something as small as a mustard seed can bloom into a never-ending field of glory.
It’s proof to us that nothing is impossible.
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