Monday Morning Devotion-September 9, 2024
Seedy Faith
I assure you, even if you had faith 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.' Matthew 17:20-21
This week we continue our countdown with the 1,004th devotion since 2,005. The devotion featured is the 4th most viewed of all the weekly devotions. It is called “Seedy Faith” and reached 3,613 readers during the week of October 20, 2014.
Seedy Faith
"We want God to microwave answers to our prayers." And oh yeah, God if it wouldn't be too much trouble send me directions on MapQuest and confirm them with a tweet on Twitter.
Mark Batterson follows up that idea by writing in Draw the Circle, "We want things to happen at the speed of light instead of the speed of a seed planted in the ground."
Yet, that is what prayer, in most instances is about. It is planting a seed. Sharing with God your needs, your desires, your hopes and your dreams. And as with all seeds it takes time for them to germinate.
I continue to pray about my writing. Ask that God will use it however he sees fit. And in many ways, He already has. But, when I pray about my screenplay, I would like to immediately be shown the name of a filmmaker, contact him and strike a deal. Doesn't happen that way.
Batterson says "If we are going to understand the potential of faith, we have to understand the power of a seed." When we pray, we are showing faith that this prayer is being heard and our expectations, and certainly our hopes are that something positive will result from this.
Jesus compared our faith to a mustard seed which was the smallest-known seed back in the day! Though very small it grew into a very large bush. Not only that, Batterson points out that this tiny seed is the source of all the nutrients we need to survive as it provides calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, selenium and zinc.
He says that faith is a lot like that because it doesn't always look like much, but we never know what it can become.
I can walk out on my front porch and see a giant oak tree in my yard. It's huge and it got its start from a tiny acorn that fell on the ground where it started to grow. This could have been 400 to 500 years ago. Some of the acorns from this tree might have blown across the street where there is another giant oak that started from a tiny acorn as well.
These examples that are behind many spiritual realities in scripture are described in agricultural terms such as our need to have the "patience of the planter, the foresight of the farmer, and the mind-set of the sower."
So, praying in faith is like planting a seed that disappears for a season, but eventually bears fruit that will bless us and future generations. Our prayers "bear fruit forever."
In our scripture lesson Jesus is saying if you have faith even as small as a mustard seed you can tell a mountain to move, and it will. How ridiculous is that? Pretty ridiculous actually if taken literally. Have you ever seen anyone pray for a mountain to be moved and that happened?
No, nobody has. At least I don't think anyone has. And why is that? Is it that we don't have enough faith? I've thought about this scripture before and for me it has always come down to this: No, I couldn't get a mountain to move because it would be impossible to have that much faith.
I think the reason I couldn't get a mountain to move is because it would be almost impossible to fully, 100% believe I could get that to happen. There would always be just a tiny, sliver of doubt that something that unimaginable could happen because I prayed for it to.
I do have a lot of faith. I have seen many, many prayers answered because I offered them up in faith, totally and fully believing God would answer them. It doesn't always happen, but I figure when it doesn't it is because God has a reason. Then maybe something else happens that was unexpected. Even if at the time I didn't like the result that came about.
In those times I have learned to take my Mom's faith-approach. She would always say, no matter how disappointed she may have been, "Well I just believe that is a blessing in disguise." God couldn't "not" bless Mom because everything from Him was a blessing to her. That is a lasting-legacy of faith that she passed on to me. She lived to be 97-and-a-half.
Now when Jesus told the disciples about mustard-seed faith he wasn't condemning them for having substandard faith. "He was trying to show how important faith would be in their future ministry. If you are facing a problem that seems as big and immovable as a mountain, turn your eyes from the mountain and look to Christ for more faith. Only then will you be able to overcome the obstacles that may stand in your way." (Quest Study Bible)
Hey that's the key. You don't always have to have mountain-sized faith for God to work in and through your prayers. Just offer those prayers up in simple faith and be alert for God's answers remembering that they might not be instantaneous.
Batterson says that he continued to plant a seed with regards to writing. That on-going request was answered by God…13 years after he started praying for it to happen.
Sometimes it depends on what kinds of seeds we are sowing in our prayers as to how long and in what way it will be before an answer is received. If you "sow kindness you will reap kindness. Sowing generosity allows you to reap generosity and if you sow love, you will reap love."
There will be times of famine. That's just the way life works. At times it might seem that you have a run of bad luck. Nothing comes out the expected or hoped for way. The answer is to keep sowing those seeds of faith. Keep trusting God. He is bigger than any problem.
Don't let Satan sow a seed of hopelessness in your heart. He will try to convince you that your prayers are not working. He might have you thinking that your problem is too small for an Almighty God to be bothered with. Don't listen.
"If we do the little things like they are big things, then God will do the big things like they are little things."
Be seed-crazy in your prayers because they take on a life of their own and your prayers will even out-live you. They have eternal-value which means that they are significant and of great importance in God's Kingdom.
Monday Prayer: Lord thank you for this lesson on sowing our seeds through prayer so that you might fully bless them. Amen!