faith

Matthew 17:18-20

And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was healed instantly. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, "Why could we not cast it out?" He said to them, "Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.

My family has walked through a lot this past year... as have many of you who read this BLOG (all three of you ;) ). After a while you begin to ask yourself the "faith" questions... why won't these mountains move? ...where did all these mountains come from in the first place? ...what's the matter with me? ...what's the matter with my faith? You begin to wonder why, if only a small amount of faith is needed to move mountains, do I seem so unable to even open a door?

Many of us have been in situations where we HAVE believed God and found ourselves in the strange place of actually seeing what we believed Him for materialize in front of us - as this man's sons healing did. It is amazing. It can take your breath away... praise God for those moments.

BUT

Many more of us have found ourselves in that place of believing God for something that did not materialize. We are left standing at a closed door. We know the "right" answer... that God's answer is always right (which I believe to be true) but we can't seem to reconcile these types of verses with our realities. We may have even found ourselves hearing (in our head OR in our ears) the voice of doubt or shame... "obviously we don't have enough faith". Hmmm.

One thing I know "for sure" is that I don't have enough faith. I don't believe enough. The disciples didn't have enough (Luke 17:5-6) and they walked around with Jesus right in front of them. Enough... what does that even mean? As if there was some magical quantity that gives you some sort of super power to do whatever you want... for Jesus of course.

BUT

I want to...

I want to be able to move these mountains AND I know that God can... I wonder, is that faith?