Jesus, in Matthew 17:20, spoke to His disciples, in the hearing of
a multitude of witnesses and observers that had gathered around them, after the
disciples could not heal a young boy of a disease that constantly and without
warning attacked this young lad, and said to them, “Because of your
unbelief; for assuredly, I say to
you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move
from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.”
He uses similar words in Luke’s Gospel 17:6 when, after He teaches them through
parables, they request “Increase our faith.”
I
think we all might occasionally request from God the same thing, “Lord,
increase our faith.” We recognize our need to believe more, to trust more, to
act in faith and by faith more, to move mountains by the power of prayer and
faith, deep faith, growing faith and powerful faith. We usually would feel this
need in times of difficult circumstances we or our families might face. Who
doesn’t need more faith, the kind of faith that Jesus speaks to His disciples
about in these two passages?
A
week ago, I was invited to attend a premiere showing of a new film that will be
coming out to theaters in April 2015. The title of the film is “Little Boy” and
the premise of the film is a little boy who dares to believe in the power of
his prayers and in a God who would answer those prayers. He is laughed at by
other boys and girls, ridiculed even by his own brother, assisted rationally to
understand faith from a well-meaning and caring priest (an adult-kind of faith)
while all along the little boy believes with all his heart and might that faith
is not just rational but real and practical and that it resided in him and in
his believe in God. He believes that he can indeed move mountains and in
particular cause his father to return from the war. This is a most wonderful
film about family, faith, courage, forgiveness and doing what is right. I
highly recommend that we all see this film! Not only to support Christian
films, which we must do, but to learn and be encouraged in our faith by this
“Little Boy.”
The
ultimate teaching I receive from Jesus’ words about faith and that is
beautifully portrayed in this film is that the issue of faith is not asking for
an increase of it, but rather using the faith we already have in us, in our
hearts and in our minds, our assurance of who God is and of how much He loves
us. If we dare to believe in an Almighty God that can do all things, we can
have the faith that is necessary to deal with all things in our lives, the
difficult ones, the easy ones and the extremely hard ones that threaten our
peace and our well-being.
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