PART 2
It was the middle of the night. My eyes popped open with a holy revelation: Look for Roots.
I went to sleep wrestling with the second painting in this series: how do I depict mountains moving in the wait? Let's be honest: sometimes it’s miraculous. God moves so fast we can hardly keep up, but more often than not, He wants us to mature in persistent faith. He isn't growing an audience; He's growing disciples.
With Jesus, it's always more. When He used the analogy of mustard seed-size faith, He was tending to bold disciples who had just failed publicly at miraculous faith. They were confused and embarrassed.
Jesus passionately redirected them: this kind of demon requires prayer and fasting. If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can tell this mountain to move from here to there, and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you! In the middle of the night, I realized that He was teaching them one of the most vital disciplines we will need for our faith walk.
He could have pointed to a speck of dust or a grain of sand to illustrate size. He didn't….He used a seed because in order for our faith to grow, it must be planted in good soil--prepared by prayer and fasting.
Jesus often compared our lives to a harvest. Unfortunately, since the fall, that means there will be weeds in our garden. Weeds that have shallow roots but grow exponentially.
Seeds planted in faith follow a different process than weeds. On the surface, it may feel like nothing is happening, but what we can't see are those hidden roots--strong, vital, glowing roots chasing living water, setting a foundation for immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine--according to His power that is at work in us--our good soil.
Looking around, it's easy to get discouraged when everything except what we planted in faith grows quickly.
Faith seeds that felt so significant when we boldly planted them become a source of discouragement: we are convinced that either I messed up--overshot my worth or maybe putting that level of faith in God was false hope.
Here, we make critical choices: Do we give into the immature impulses to rage against our garden in frustration, or move on, convinced it was a waste of time?
Some of the cracks in our faith are from ripping out underwhelming baby plants too soon, not realizing that vast work was happening in the unseen.
When we move on from the faith we passionately claimed, our lack of persistent faith WILL cost us a mountain-moving harvest.
The second painting in this series is called "Roots Unseen". The seed has been planted, and the roots span the whole base of the mountain. The tree isn’t big, but the sunrise bursting behind the cracks in the mountain cast a promise: there is a much larger tree reflected on the water.
The work God is doing in our lives right now may not look very impressive, but those powerful roots are not only on the verge of bursting into a mighty tree, but they are also shaking loose the ground where unhealthy mountains have solidified. Now is the worst time to give up!
The roots of our mustard seed faith are growing. Keep praying! Keep fasting! Encourage each other! Hold tight to the faith that put a tiny but significant seed in the ground.
Psalm 27:14. Wait on the Lord! Be of GOOD courage, and He will strengthen your heart. Wait, I say on the Lord.