Move Mountains
If you have faith even the size of a mustard seed you can move mountains.
This thought came streaming through my mind as I watched the mountains grow bigger and bigger before my eyes. Travelling through the Canadian Rockies was a first for me, and as I sat in the back seat on our way to the coast, I took in their grandiose nature.
I had never really thought about how I felt about mountains. When I lived in Half Moon Bay for five months in 2012, I didn’t put much thought into the mountains so daringly placed on the coastline I called “home” for the duration of my fellowship. It was just mountains and ocean side by side. Perhaps that’s why the mountains never made me feel… the expansive ocean on one side kept me feeling free.
The Rockies, however, are mountains on either side of your path. I felt confined. I felt like I didn’t know where I was or what was on the other side. I wasn’t in panic mode-- I didn’t need to speak my thoughts because they were debilitating, but I was wondering why I wasn’t loving them as much as you hear others boldly profess. Some people live for the mountains; they love how they feel when they are around them, they love to explore them, they love what they represent. I, on the other hand, felt different.
When I look at the mountains I want to conquer them. I want to know what is on the other side. I want to feel the freedom and expansiveness of the ocean or, dare I say, the Prairies. The fear of the unknown became apparent and that is when I remembered the piece of scripture that makes it clear how even the smallest bit of faith can move the mountains in our lives.
"I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it would move. Nothing would be impossible."
With faith, anything is possible. And no, this isn’t some post about how all your dreams will come true if you pray and ask God for them. He’s not a grocery store-- you can’t pick something you want off the shelf, pay with prayers, and expect to take it home with you. Faith means trusting the unknown to a known God.
When I saw this phrase on Instagram (obviously), I thought about how important that is. Trusting the unknowns in our life to a God that knows every single little thing is amazing but, oh, how often and easy it is to fail to trust. How often we try to work our own magic when God wants to show you that He can do anything because He is the creator of all the magic within you, the creator of the entire Universe, the incredible Everything that we try to comprehend with our human minds but, simply, cannot even fathom a mustard seed sized amount of how amazing He is. The amount we will know OF God is limited, but the amount of KNOWING God in our hearts can be overwhelming.
If faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains I want that faith.
I want to trust the unknown to a known God.
I want to see what is on the other side of the mountain and while my faith may vary in size from almost mustard seed sized on my good days, to smaller than a speck of dust on my not so good days, I think we all have the power from God within us to move our own mountains. We can look at our situations, put our Faith in God, and watch the mountain get smaller and smaller as we begin to climb. Perhaps, it will turn out, the mountain was actually a pebble and we were just viewing it as a mountain. Maybe the mountain stays and we follow a new path.
When we stopped to take a few photos with the mountains haunting the background of the image while Evergreen tree-lined pristine turquoise water flowed peacefully through, I was reminded that mountains are what you make them. They can make you feel confined, or you can have faith… even smaller than a mustard seed… and you can view them as a way to put your life back in the hands of a God who is incredibly loving, guiding, accepting and challenging.