“The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.”
Luke 17:5-6 NIV
There is a final facet of faith that we, as westerners who think and have a world view that is different from that of the ancient Hebrews, do not understand when we read the Bible. We tend to inject our philosophical and abstract ways of understanding and interpreting the Bible into its words rather than drawing their meaning from ancient Hebrew thought and interpretation from the pictures or letters that the words represent.
Hebrew words begin with three letters, called the “parent” word, and build their meaning by adding letters according to the context. The same word can mean a variety of things depending on the “child” letters added and the context in which they are used. This means that there is no corresponding and specific translation of a Hebrew word into another language.
Hebrew people based their understanding of the world and life in the world, and consequently their language which developed from the simple way they experienced life. As I have already explained, for example, they viewed faith from their experiences in the wilderness, like tying their tents to a reliable stake in the ground so that they would not blow away in the desert wind.
So too, the Hebrew understanding of time was different from ours. We view time as a straight line which has a beginning and an end. Everyone’s life is a straight line, beginning with birth and ending in death. For the Hebrews, life was cyclical. Like the time on the clock, like days and nights, like seasons and years, and like human life, time continues in never-ending cycle into which human lives fit and participate.
How did they view the past and the future? For the Hebrew, and opposite to the way we think, they were able to “see” the past in front of them and the future behind them. This is not as crazy as it seems. The simple reason was that they could “see” their past in their memories, which was, therefore, in front of them, whereas they could not ”see” their future since it was unknown, and therefore, behind them.
This way of viewing the past has practical implications for our understanding of faith. One of the ways our faith grows is by learning from our past experiences. As we experience God’s faithfulness in the tests we go through, our faith in Him grows and strengthens. We can “see”learn from our past and grow an increasing understanding and knowledge of God and His ways. Therefore, we can lean on Him with greater confidence, in our present circumstances, because of what we have already learned from past experiences of His faithfulness.
This concept helps us to understand that faith isn’t just something we randomly exercise when faced with a variety of tests. Rather, faith is an attitude we develop as we grow in our understanding of God through experience which, in turn, contributes to our faithfulness to Him and His standards. The longer we live, the more tests we endure, the more we experience His faithfulness, the more secure we become in who God is, and consequently, the greater our loyalty to Him in more times of testing.
This means that faith becomes a settled mindset. When things happen that require us to trust God for an outcome, we don’t need to crank our faith up because faith is already in place as part of the way we live life. Like Jesus said, “Remain in me and I will remain in you.”
Now, to conclude…
Mustard-seed-sized faith is all that is needed to kick start our life of reliance on Jesus, but a seed always becomes something bigger…a plant, a tree…that will finally bear fruit. In the context of prayer, Jesus said something significant to His disciples…
“If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”
John 15:7-8 NIV
Was Jesus saying that the answers to our prayers that flow from our faith-union with Him form part of the fruit we bear that glorifies the Father? Is faith, then, a kind of two-way power line through which the Father accomplishes His will on earth…?
We lean our weight on Him…He reciprocates by answering us…and His will is done on earth through whatever situation we have addressed in prayer in our part of the earth. Multiply this thought by the billions of believers who live on earth. Some of these billions are engaged with God in furthering His purposes by faithful prayer. This is the way Father has planned…that we partner with Him in the administration of His kingdom on earth. We get our needs met, He gets His will done, and His rule extends deeper and deeper into the earth’s chaos to move His plan along towards completion…and He is glorified!
What a brilliant strategy!