When I was asked to write this, I was given a list of the spiritual gifts to choose from. Reading through them I remembered people who have encouraged me through every gifting: Barbie’s prophetic and faith, Paul’s wisdom and knowledge, Pastor Terry’s teaching and shepherding, just to name a few …
As I thought about it a quick feeling of resentment zipped through me. Something like: “I haven’t been given any ‘mighty’ spiritual gifts.” Continuing to read through the list the word “faith” grabbed me–almost violently, and I heard: “Even a little moves mountains. Remember the mountains I’ve moved?”
Then Scriptures and pictures flashed through my mind–songs of comfort, past promises, healing … in moments, I was given a whole new perspective on the gift of faith and how it’s shown up in my life, and along with that new perspective came a conviction to share it here.
The Father started with the picture of a mustard tree and Matthew 17:10: “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.”
Faith can be small AND mighty. I thought having a spiritual gift would be like having my own personal superpower. Something big. I had been thinking of the mountains and of the strength it would take to move them. I wanted it to be obvious what gifts I was given so I could make myself feel confident and strong. So that even if I didn’t boast to others, I could boast to myself.
I was corrected with Ephesians 2:8-9: “ … you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God … So no one may boast.”
I have to laugh at myself for the irony of wanting the gift of faith so I could tell myself I’m strong, instead of having faith that God is strong in me …
The gift of faith isn’t a superpower; it’s a seed.
A mustard tree is one of the fastest growing trees; it thrives in a hot and arid environment. Its natural environment is the desert. What a thought: faith grows fastest in a desert.
What happens when we plant faith?
I am so thankful for the people in my life who’ve had the wisdom to take that seed and plant it. People who have persevered through their deserts and used the fruit of their faith to plant a seed of it in others. For the people who planted faith in me in my desert.
The questions God left me with are these: What am I doing with my seed of faith? What are you doing with yours?
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I’m Beth Schnelker. My Husband Kurt and I, along with our three kids, attend New Grace. I have no idea how to sum us all up in just a few sentences other than to say our family wouldn’t exist without a determined God, and if you know our story at all that will make you chuckle a little.