Faith to Move Mountains

It has been a painfully drawn-out winter season for many of us in the US.  Feeling the sun's warmth on our skin seems impossibly long ago, and we are weary of the constant stress of wearing layers and weather-related cancellations.  Many of us have despaired, not only from lack of daylight but also from the gnawing sense that we would never see spring.

Metaphorically, all of us will go through interminably long winter seasons in our spiritual journeys.  Our faith feels dry and dead, long removed from times of abundance and bloom.  We feel distant from God and cloistered in a cold and dark place.

I've written about how "winter is a season, too," before, but wanted to add something even more eloquent, which is not more of my words but words from Jesus (from the 17th chapter of the gospel according to Matthew):

When they came to the crowd, a man came up to Jesus, falling on his knees before Him and saying, “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is a lunatic and is very ill; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water. “I brought him to Your disciples, and they could not cure him.” And Jesus answered and said, “You unbelieving and perverted generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring him here to Me.” And Jesus rebuked him, and the demon came out of him, and the boy was cured at once.  Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not drive it out?” And He said to them, “Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you. But this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.”

God has His reasons for winter seasons, and we may not ever know why nor may we find much comfort in our struggles even if we did know the reasons.  Nevertheless, it is helpful to remember that, even if our enemies are as big as mountains and our faith feels as small as mustard seeds, awesome stuff can still happen.