Probably one of my favorite things to do when I was a boy was fishing trips with my dad. He would plan a trip to one of our favorite lakes around Colville, and then we would commence the preparations. There was gear to gather and assemble. There was bait to collect. (Our favorite way to collect bait was by watering the lawn for a couple hours in the evening and then scouring the lawn with flashlights to find the largest and juiciest worms!) Then of course it was early to bed so that we could get up before dawn and be on the lake by sunrise. I could always depend on my dad to wake me up and shuffle me into the car. By the time we arrived at our fishing hole I was wide-awake and ready to land that “whopper.”

I don’t think there was ever a time when I was uncertain about whether or not we would go out. I trusted my dad that when he said we would go on a fishing trip, we would. I had faith in him. His dependability led me to expect that if I needed something he would be there to help. If I asked for something good I knew he could and would give it.

In Matthew 17, we read how Jesus healed a boy who was being oppressed by a demon. The situation was this: Jesus had been away on a retreat with three of his disciples (vs. 1-8). When they joined up with the rest of his crew, a man came out of the crowd and begged Jesus to heal his son. He did, and it was quite a miracle!

Yet it got his disciples thinking.

“Why could we not cast it out?” (Matthew 17:19)

Jesus’s answer is revealing.

He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.” (Matthew 17:20)

Please take a moment to reflect on exactly what Jesus said. His words are powerful and the implications are somewhat staggering. “Faith like a grain of mustard seed.” “Nothing will be impossible for you.” Wow. This has to be one of Jesus’s most powerful statements about faith.

How should we take his words? What does Jesus want us to understand about faith and how to apply it?

First, it is helpful to see how the gospel of Mark tells this story. In Mark 9, the disciples ask the same question, yet Jesus’s response is a little different.

And he said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.” (Mark 9:29)

The differences between the two highlight the unique perspectives of both Matthew and Mark. Together, they help us to see that for Jesus, faith was inseparable from prayer. Prayer is the way we exercise our faith. You cannot have faith in God without praying to him. Faith is meaningless, even powerless, unless you are willing to put it into practice by asking God. This is reinforced by Jesus’s teaching in the sermon on the mount.

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” (Matthew 7:7)

Jesus was not saying that we will automatically get whatever we ask for from God. He is still a good Father who gives good gifts, not evil. He has good plans for us. His purposes are best. He will not give us anything that is not best for us.

Jesus was saying that God wants us to ask. Jesus was making the point that if we don’t ask, seek, or knock, we cannot expect to receive, find, or have opened. Jesus wants us to know that God can be trusted. He wants us to have faith in Him. He wants us to trust Him enough to come and ask.

“Because of your little faith.”

It could very well be that there are things God is wanting to do in our lives, or in the lives of people around us. In fact, I’m sure of it. He wants to see lives transformed by the good news of Jesus, going from darkness to light. He wants to see churches growing in love and unity and purpose. He wants to see his followers listening to his voice and obeying his Spirit. We may say or think that all those things are possible, but when we cease to ask God for them we really betray our lack of faith. If we do not pray, we are in essence saying that we do not believe God can do the impossible.

The crux of faith is this. We pray not because we believe in the impossible. We pray because we believe in the God of the impossible. Faith always has an object, and the object of our faith is God. That is the difference. God is a good Father. He loves us and cares for us and wants what is best for us. He is trustworthy and faithful so we can pray to him. Let us build our faith by praying boldly to a God who can do far more than we can ask or think. Whether he answers in the way we want or not, let us come before him in childlike faith, trusting him completely.