If only you have the faith of a mustard seed…
you will be able to move mountains…
20 Iyar 5776
In Hebrew there are two interesting sister words: emunah – אמונה which means faith and bitachon – בטחון which means trust. We constantly hear and speak about emunah which our Creator has given to everyone even if it’s just to believe that we are alive. Our Creator however asks more than simple faith from us; he wants us to develop betachon. Take a look at the chair you are sitting on. Did you check whether or not it would hold you before you sat down? Believe me, if it broke it would take you a long time to trust that chair again. Through everyday situations, our Creator helps us to develop trust because when He promises to do something we can be assured that He will do it. So why then do we doubt? It is simply because we cannot trust the motives of our own hearts and therefore we think that our Creator is just like us. There is a saying that every thief thinks that the other person is a thief.
With this I want to bring you the understanding of the Shemittah (the Sabbatical year for the land) In Leviticus 25. We don’t own anything; even our children belong to the Creator. Our property is His and He can take it at any time. He is the one who blesses and sustains us. If we think that we earn and own everything, little by little we have displaced our Creator and have enthroned ourselves in His stead. During the 7th year we are not to harvest the produce of land leaving it alone for anyone in the area to eat from. In the 8th year we can sow and plant again which means we would have another year without produce. The Creator promised to sustain us and provide for us in the 7th and 8th year until we harvested in the 9th year. This is how we learn to develop total trust.
One of the most misunderstood passages from Rabbi Yeshua is “if only you have the faith of a mustard seed, you will be able to move mountains.” Yeshua was saying that if you really trust God then everything is possible. If a small seed can produce so much, imagine what we can accomplish if we really trust Him. It takes courage to take a step of faith even though our Creator is always with us. Yes we can move mountains but it is a process of growth and learning as we give ourselves over to a task, to a dream. If we wait for God to do things with our arms crossed thinking that all we need to do is to have faith without moving a finger, I can assure you that nothing will happen. True faith is action. Then we cry out “Where is God?” Do you know why there is so much injustice in the world? It is because good men say nothing. So many terrible things are happening in the world because good people don’t want to get involved.
Each of us is given a measure of faith according to the role to which our Creator has called us. Our job is to take a step of faith, accept that role no matter how small or large and then we begin the livelong process of growing up as we to learn to trust Him. Yes we will have failures, yes, we will be hurt but if we don’t run away, the growth is amazing and well worth the effort. That is what it really means to choose life.