Mustard Seed.

Matthew 13

³¹ He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. ³² It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”

Jesus illustrates that the size of faith is not as important as the decision to carry faith, to sow it.  Furthermore, the decision to carry faith is not as important as the object of the faith.  Indeed the object of that which we have faith in trumps all.  When we carry this mustard seed, as small as it may feel, we must carry the vision of the towering tree and have faith in that.  Even this small remnant can establish roots in the places where we have the courage to carry it.  Your own faith is important, but it is the object of your faith that matters.  God will choose the smallest of vessels to make his will known. Your seed may remain a seed forever, but that will not prevent a forest from flourishing if it be God's will.

A tree, of course, starts as a seed.  Take that seed and dissect it.  It is impossible to make the logical leap from the apparent nothingness inside the seed to a thriving, nourishing forest.  But because of what we observe, we can reason that this is so.  That shouldn't take away the wonder and the mystery.  We can explain the process, but we can really never get to the "how?".  A fossil of possible million year old bacteria on Mars is enough to make the world gasp at the possibilities and ramifications.  Yet, right under my foot is more life than is evident in the entire solar system.  Under my daughters dirty fingernails is LIFE (lots of it).  We haven't even discovered all of the life here on our own planet.

"Earth is the only planet we know that has a biosphere. This thin, membranous layer of life is our only home. It alone is able to maintain the exact environment we ourselves need to stay alive." Edward Wilson NGM

We should all collapse in awe at the wonder and the mystery of this unthinkable multitude of life on this planet.  As broken as we are, man and woman are the apex of this creation.  The capacity to ask why and how is a privilege and the Joy given to us by a loving God.  Our ability to create and discover are an expression of his very nature, his image.  Our actual physical likeness in God's image is less amazing than the things that really matter: Love, Justice, Mercy, Forgiveness, Joy, Wisdom.  God hasn't given himself the choice of loving us, by creating he loves.  This is how we are different, we do have the choice, even if it means our decay, we have the option of not choosing God. 

The seed remains.  My faith was torn and tattered.  I questioned the goodness of God and thought that if he really did exist and really did love me, then he was a fool.  I came to the end of myself though and found that I still carried this seed.  As low as I was, I could not shake the awe and wonder of the universe, or of life on earth.  Or a tree.  The simple beauty of a tree has as much to do with my faith as anything.  The vastness of the universe and the immensity of persistent beauty should have made me feel insignificant.  However this seed that I could not shake, this evidence of a God that was seeking me (more accurately, was waiting for me to seek him), made the universe feel personal.  If there was order to the universe, to a tree, to a seed - then it must have been intentionally created.  If it was created, then there must be a creator.  If there is a creator, then there is a possibility of order in my life...that would seem consistent with the universe.  That made it personal.  I'm using some reasoning here to explain, yet faith of course isn't really about reason.  It is about observing what we see and feel and how we interact: what delivers and what remains silent.  I believe in Jesus Christ, not because of a blind leap, but because he has delivered.  His words live and those words make sense of why things are the way they are and more importantly why we should hope in him to make things right.  Holding on to the the possibility that the creator of the Universe came to Earth for me and loves me may feel like the tiniest of seeds.  But I sow that seed and I hope and I hold the vision of the full grown tree: Heaven on Earth, Jesus living with us.  Redeemed!