“So the Lord said, ‘If you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, Be pulled up by the roots and be planted in the sea, and it would obey you.’ ” Luke 17:6.

“So Jesus 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.’ ” Matthew 17:20.

“Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.  And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.” I John 5:14.

The mustard seed is one of the tiniest seeds found in the Middle East.  That is the amount of faith that it takes to uproot trees or even move mountains if it is God’s will to do so.  I am often perplexed how little faith I can muster, not even a mustard seed much of the time.  It is so easy, even as Christians, to face life in our own strength and ignore our great God whose help can be deployed with only a marginal amount of faith in Him.  We are commanded to walk by faith and not by sight (II Corinthians 5:7), although we find ourselves walking by sight all too often.  This results in stress/worry and to be robbed of the joy that we are supposed to maintain at all times as a fruit of walking in the Spirit (Galatians 5:22).  But it does not have to be this way.  Further, a mustard seed of faith can help us avoid the lusts of the flesh by walking in the Spirit (Galatians 5:16), but this walk takes faith.

So often we are weighed down by our besetting sins and the circumstances of life we face.  Sometimes, for those weak in faith, these seem insurmountable and the equivalent of a mountain.  However, although we are weak He is strong and true mustard seed faith can unleash His power.  The strongholds of sin can be broken and the problems of life faced courageously and with joy and confidence in our Lord that everything will eventually work for our good (Romans 8:28).  We can figuratively move mountains and uproot trees in our life with only a mustard seed of faith.