Where did we go wrong?

“Your people could not do the job” the man complained to the leader.

Frustrated with the incompetence of his followers, despite the extensive training, the master reprimands them ‘faithless’ and ‘perverse’.

This incident is recorded in the Gospel of Matthew, where a man pleads for Jesus to have mercy and heal his son, suffering from epileptic seizures. He had earlier taken the boy to the disciples, but they were not able to help.

Later, the disciples approach Jesus to find out where did they go wrong.  Jesus explains the reason in simple words – because your faith is little!

While the disciples are wondering how much faith is needed to see a miracle, Jesus says “faith that is the size of a mustard seed” Which means, the disciples did not have even that much of faith?  And that too despite Jesus’ repeated teaching and urging to walk into the miraculous.

On the other hand, Jesus had a greater vision for them, He wanted to equip them for the spectacular, to be able to do the works that Jesus Himself did.  Obviously, they didn’t get the point. No wonder they were failing.

Would he want them to fail? Never! Jesus continued teaching them, working hard to uplift their faith and raise it to the size of a mustard seed, Jesus would take care of the rest.

In some of our traditional cooking, we see the mustard seed often.

Dal and chutneys are a regular part of the daily diet, where the Tadka or tempering involves heating the cooking oil and adding whole spices along with mustard seeds for seasoning. I love watching the mustard seeds crackle, splatter and release a sharp, zingy flavor as they go into hot oil. I just relish that scent and flavor!

Spiritually speaking, I love to grasp the mustard seed in the palm of my hand, to align myself with the suggestion from Jesus that if we have faith as much as a mustard seed we can see great things.

Just visualizing a mustard seed, it  seems simple enough to have that much of faith. But, when I studied a mustard seed a little more closely, I realized that the smallness of its size seems to be the problem.

The seed is so tiny that it tends to slip and needs extra care and diligence to get a hold of.

That is faith! Seemingly easy but requires extra care to hold on to or else it can easily slip.

Concerning a miracle from the Lord or any other provision, I find it astounding that when the deal is done, we get to keep 90 percent as our share while He expects only 10 percent as the tithe. On the other hand, when it comes to the effort, the Lord expects a smaller role from our side and a major effort is from His side. Just a little faith from our side and He shows up with a larger involvement from His side.

How generous, bountiful, and kind!

With God on our side, we can do great things. The one thing we are  to be careful  about is our faith, it is so precious that even a little is enough to bring about the miraculous and the spectacular, which is  what Jesus wants for us.

If we are not careful, this precious faith like the little mustard seed can easily slip away.

Bible verse Matthew 17:20: (NIV)

He replied, “Because you have so little faith. 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.”