“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.”
Matthew 17:20
We showed up at ministry the first day, and looked up from the bottom of a mountain. We had been told that we would be helping out a man who needed to build a new house for his family, and that’s it. We had no idea what to expect, but leveling a mountain certainly didn’t make the list.
I remember working that first day, filling sandbags, and moving dirt from one place to another, a seemingly endless task. And then we had to come back tomorrow and do it again. And then the day after that. And then the day after that. Until it was finished.
It was exhausting, and hot, and I was sore, and I had blisters. And I wanted to complain. But then I looked over at the man whose house this was going to be. And he had already put hours of work. By himself. And he was the one losing his home. The home that he and his five children and his wife lived in. And he was the one working hard, not taking breaks, and not complaining.
And then I got to thinking, maybe Jesus meant moving mountains in a literal sense as well as a figurative sense. Because I was certainly lacking in the faith that this mountainside could be leveled. There seemed to be too much dirt, and not enough places to put it. But this man, he never doubted. Because he didn’t have the option to doubt. He had to believe that it was possible. He had to believe that this mountainside could be leveled; that his new home could be built there. There was no room for doubt in his life.
And so each day we showed up, climbed up the mountain, and moved dirt. Sometimes we shoveled it down the mountain. Sometimes we just moved it to the place we had just cleared off. Oftentimes we weren’t really sure what we were doing. But we continued to press on.
And over the weeks, we could see progress. As more and more dirt got moved off, I began to see. I began to believe, and to have faith. I could see the love that this man was putting in to his work. Because he wasn’t just doing this for himself. He was doing it for his children. To provide a home for them. To keep them safe and pour into them.
And I’ll never forget the day we finished. I was on the side of the mountain, moving dirt away so that we could keep dumping more. And each time a wheelbarrow full would come, I would ask, “Is this it? Is this it?” And then I hear the man say “That’s it.” (except in Spanish because that’s what he spoke”. And I climb up, and look around. And where there used to be a ledge of dirt as high as my waist was now a level platform, ready to be a home.
Had I given in to my doubts, gotten discouraged, and stopped trying like I was so tempted to, I don’t think I would have seen that moment come. But because of his belief, he’s ready and able to begin constructing his home.
Next time I face a figurative mountain, I’m going to look back on this experience. I’m going to think about how impossible it seemed. And I’m going to think, “How do you move a mountain? One scoop at a time.”
