Reframing the Mustard Seed (Part 6)
Asking God for Faith: The Path to Mountain-Moving
The most honest prayer in Scripture may be the simplest: “I believe; help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24). Spoken by a desperate father whose story sits in the same narrative context as the mustard seed saying, it captures the paradox of faith, simultaneously present and lacking, real and fragile.
The disciples later echo that same plea: “Increase our faith!” (Luke 17:5). The request comes immediately before Jesus repeats the mustard seed teaching, linking the two ideas inseparably. Faith is not a human achievement to be mustered; it is a divine gift to be multiplied.
Paul calls it “the gift of God.” The writer of Hebrews calls Jesus “the author and perfecter of faith” (Heb. 12:2). Faith, then, begins and ends with God’s initiative. It is cultivated by proximity to His Word-“Faith comes by hearing” (Rom. 10:17)-and grows through obedience, not emotion. The humility required is immense: we cannot move mountains on our own, nor even believe as we ought, apart from grace.
Contemporary Mountains
If faith once moved the Temple Mountain, what are today’s mountains? They are not piles of stone but systems of power that claim divine legitimacy while bearing little fruit-institutions that promise truth but deliver control, or communities that prioritise reputation over righteousness.
Consider the prosperity gospel as one contemporary example. It promises divine favour measured in wealth and health, baptising consumerism as faith. Its megachurches rival Herod’s Temple in architectural ambition, and its preachers live like emperors. Yet where is the fruit? Where are the communities being transformed, the systems being confronted, the mountains being moved? Instead, the vulnerable are told their suffering results from insufficient faith, while the architects of the system grow rich on the offerings of the poor.
This is not to single out one movement unfairly. Every generation faces its own “Temple”-structures that claim God’s blessing but bear no resemblance to His kingdom. The test remains the same: does this mountain produce justice, mercy, humility? Does it confront power or accommodate it? Does it bear the fruit of the Spirit or the spoils of empire?
The mustard seed principle remains: small, faithful acts - spoken truth, sacrificial love, humble courage - can uproot the largest structures of oppression. History offers proof. Abolition, civil rights, and anti-apartheid movements began as mustard seeds-tiny communities animated by conviction rather than power. Their faith did not decorate the mountain; it moved it.
Faith that only comforts the faithful is not faith. True faith confronts. It reforms rather than rebels, aligning human order with divine justice. Its power lies not in visibility but in fidelity.
The Revolutionary Nature of Tiny Faith
Jesus was not teaching positive thinking. He was announcing a revolution of divine proportions: the smallest faith in the living God can dismantle the most immovable systems of human control. The Temple, which seemed eternal, fell. Empires that mocked the cross now lie in ruins. Faith, when genuine, gifted, and obedient, still moves mountains.
But not everyone possesses this faith. It must be received, cultivated, and proven through fruit. The true measure of faith is not intensity of belief but the transformation it produces. Do mountains still move around us? Do systems still tremble under the weight of truth and compassion? If not, perhaps we have mistaken sentiment for faith.
The call is simple and searching: self-examination (do we have faith?), humble petition (give us faith), and courageous participation (use our faith).
Faith as small as a mustard seed does not decorate mountains; it moves them.
