What is faith? Is it believing in something unseen? Is it hope? Is it trusting in the unknown? Can you distinguish faith from your own will power? I faced these questions throughout last month. Unsure of my measure of faith I struggled to see anything other than my own strength at work. The problem I know all to well is my strength is severely limited and will eventually run out. It will leave me broken, defeated, and frustrated at my own inadequacy.
Then during debrief at the end of the month God gave me revelation and began speaking His perfect truth in to my questionable heart. He told me my faith is like the tree standing before me. My eyes are looking out from the branches and leaves and all I can see is everything around me shaking in the wind. He said to me “look at you from my perspective. See the leaves and branches shaking but the leaves are connected to the branch. The branch to the trunk. The trunk to the roots. The roots to the earth. So is the faith I have planted in you. Even though you see nothing but struggles, you will not fall for you are rooted deep in Me. Look at the birds the find shelter and refuge among the branches and leave. Just like the birds I will bring my children to the branches of your faith and I will show them my refuge through you.”
As we move into our first week at bar, Montenegro I’m still chewing on this looking for any opportunity to put it to action. Last Tuesday that opportunity presented itself in the simple act of having faith for a free meal.
I slept through my alarm Tuesday morning. Although my plans were to go to the store before leaving, I now had no time to pick up lunch and dinner. Its a good walk from the house to the train station so as I walked I pondered and prayed: “Father I need you to provide today. I don’t know how expensive the town were headed to will be and I must stay within budget. So I’m going to step into this faith you say I have and believe that you will provide a free meal.”
The train ride took 2 hours most of which I sat in a car with four locals. The atmosphere was thick with tension and not a word was spoken. One and a half hours into the ride the old man sitting in the cabin with me and three other locals gets up to go to another car. I took this opportunity to get up stretch my legs and talk some friends in the next cabin.
Five minutes go buy and I come back to my seat caught off guard by the shifted atmosphere. The three lades in the cabin were laughing and giggling with each other as if they were long lost friends reconnecting. As I sat down next to one of the lades she reaches in her bag to pull out a fully loaded sub sandwich from the dinning cart. She turns to me and holds out the sandwich. Politely I say no thank you but I really appreciate the offer. She would not take no for an answer so I accept. That’s when I realized what just happened. All three of the lades had a sandwich. She had bought an extra one for me the complete stranger who she had not even spoken to. God provided!
In my mind it was over there the prayer was answered and it was affirmed, the faith I posses. God can’t be put into a box even a big one. He loves me more than I am content with. Just a few moments later one of the other lades accidentally drops her sandwich all over the floor and as we all help clean up the mess I feel the urge to give up mine. I reach into my bag to grab the sub and see the Serbian bibles I packed to handout at our destination. So I gave her the bible with the sub and a bible to each of the others in the cabin. They were over joyed when they realized what I had given them and though we couldn’t speak the a common language we understood each other.
Even though I gave my free lunch away God still provided another free meal this time a massive plate of pork roast with sides of bread, cheesy mashed potatoes, and sautéed veggies from a nice restaurant. I thought the sub was the answer to my prayer but it was only a blessing to be a blessing. He had a much bigger and better plan.
The faith that I need is not something I can posses on my own. It is the faith given to me by the Spirit. The bible says we are given the measure of faith not a measure. We must stop aspiring to have mustard seed faith, because we are given all the faith we will ever need. You and I already have it! It is by this gift of faith we are able to believe in Christ and its not the size of a mustard seed it’s a massive full grown mature tree.
