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It has ![\"Faith\"](\"http://blog.antipas.wpprofix.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Faith-300x132.png\")
been said that we can know how many seeds are in an apple. But, we can’t know how many apples are in a seed. We would need to plant the apple seed and wait a season. In due time, inevitably there will be more apples than we are able to count. The point is that a little seed can do more than it appears. Jesus said, that if we have faith the size of a grain of mustard seed, we are empowered by even such a small dosage of faith to move mountains (ref. Matthew 17:20). In other words, when we have faith, we can do big things!
Often, we think that if we have financial resources, we can do big things. But, success can’t be bought with money. It is birthed from within. As strange as it seems, faith attracts resources. A pastor-friend shared with me that God gave him a vision to build a ministry. He knew that he did not have the resources on his own. So, he was renting space from another church. Then, he moved into a local hotel ballroom. After about two years, the Lord put on his heart that it was time for him to get his own building. His dilemma was that he did not have adequate financial resources to make that step. The beauty of my friend’s story was that when he decided to just obey God and look for a building, the money started to pour in. Someone approached him and gave him a $10,000 check! Indeed, in the words of the saying from the old church, “If you make one step, He (God) will make two. There is no limit to what God can do.” If we can just believe despite the odds, in due time, the seed of faith will produce a harvest.
Christian faith begins with God and must translate to practice, the way we look at and deal with life’s situations. The operative word here is “courage.” Recently, I came across an interesting article “The Measure of Faith is the Measure of Success” on MindReality.com by its founder, Enoch Tan.[i] Tan has some valuable insights about the strength of courage and what it means to live by faith. Tan explains that discouragement drains us such that anything that we imagine to do becomes unreachable. We lose energy when we are discouraged. In fact, the loss of courage diminishes even those savvy moves that we would make instinctively when the courage level is high. In this vein, Tan rightly notes, “Courage is the leader in the mental realm, and when it is down all other faculties do down as well. What most people in great failure need is to have their courage restored, renewed.”[ii] In this sense, faith is defined as courage. It is what the Psalmist meant when he said, “I would have lost heart, unless I had believed That I would see the goodness of the Lord In the land of the living” (Psalms 27:13 NKJV). That small amount of faith that is able to do big things is defined by courage to continue believing. No other virtue will produce success if the core tenet of faith is absent.
[i] I am hesitant to agree with Tan completely because he seems inclined to mingle the issue of human consciousness with the Ultimate Being – God – a bit more than I agree. Indeed, there is strength in consciousness. A mind that is submitted to God is more powerful than the consciousness, itself. Yet, a conscious courage to live out God’s plan for one\’s life is a valuable virtue, a foundational principle for Christian success.
[ii]. Enoch Tan, “The Measure of Faith is the Measure of Success.” No page numbers. Online source. http://www.mindreality.com/the-measure-of-faith-is-the-measure-of-success (accessed July 1, 2014)
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