Faith on a Plane

Listening to Reggie Joined at NYWC today, and he gave a brilliant example on faith.  So often we talk about how much faith we have or don’t have.  It will either encourage us or discourage us, inspire us or deflate us, move us forward or hold us back.  But should it?

We hear Jesus tell us that if we have faith the size of a mustard seed, then we can move mountains.  As we hear that, we feel the point of the verse is to emphasize the minimal size needed to do a miracle.  We compare the results in our lives, realize we’ve never once moved a mountain, and conclude that our faith must be so insignificant, so tiny, so worthless that it is too small to make the scale Jesus uses.

But what if it’s not that?  What if Jesus wasn’t commenting on the size of our faith as a primary point?  You see Reggie made a comparison of faith to flying on a plane.  Lets say you and I decide to fly on a plane together, you are completely comfortable with flying, and I’m not, then what?  If you have 99% faith in that plane and pilot, you’re good.  But what of me?  What if I only have 15% faith in them?  What if the thought of flying gives me hives and panic attacks, yet I get on the plane?  We sit together, you being calm, collected, and under control.  Me?  Not so much.  The pilot taxies, the wheels leave this ground, we fly for two hours, land, and exit the plane.  Which one of us made it?  Exactly!  We both did.  You see the flight didn’t depend on how much faith we had.  It was all about what we did with the faith we had.  What were we willing to put our faith in ?

This is such an important idea!  If you know God wants you to do something, maybe the question isn’t “Do I have enough faith?”  Maybe the more important question is “Am I willing to put the faith I have in Him?”  Maybe you need a mountain moved.  Maybe you just need some hope.  Either way, its all about WHO you put the faith in.  Don’t worry about getting out a scale and measuring the weight of your faith.  Your faith, by itself, will never be enough.  It is HIM.  It is Jesus.  He is the one who makes it all fly.

I would love to hear your thoughts or stories.