I am always amazed at how little the faith can be and yet still trigger a miracle from Jesus Christ, the ultimate master healer. Faith as small as a mustard seed or a particle of faith is all that is required. Just like a little spark can start a bonfire, so can a very small desire or hope to believe lead to miracles just as wonderful as the Scriptural miracles. God is no respecter of persons. All who come to Him with a particle of faith will be rewarded. The scriptures a full of these truths:
“fear not, believe only”[i] is told to Jarius and his wife who are sorrowfully looking at their dead daughter just before she is raised from the deathbed.
“Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief”[ii] is the cry of the father of the paralytic demon possessed son, just before Jesus makes him whole again.
It’s like we are in a dark room standing next to the light switch. A little effort turns on the powerful light that drives away the darkness. However, we see a mess of worldly magazines, trash, filth of every kind and people laying around wounded and sick, both familiar and unfamiliar to us. We now have a choice whether to clean up the mess with the aid of the light, help those in need, and work to make it livable again or turn the light off because we are really lazy. So is faith at the beginning, just a little effort brings the Light of Christ. The Light of Christ teaches us what to do and lights the way for our feet on the covenant path.
A particle of faith can be compared to an extremely weak leg muscle. Whether it belongs to child born with defects, a stroke victim or an elderly person who can no longer walk, it is still there, still with some innervation and still capable of improvement. In my professional career, I see dizzy and bruised elderly men and women in their 80s and 90s who have so little muscle left in the legs that they can hardly stand up without assistance and are always falling even with walkers. They have had several thousand dollars’ worth of medical studies to see if there was a stroke, or a heart attack or diabetes complications. Every study is negative, so they are sent to me as a last resort. After many years, our clinic has never failed to help them get over their dizziness with rare exceptions. What is the secret? We order Physical Therapy for vestibular (balance system) rehabilitation and Physical Therapy for lower leg strengthening. Gradually over time what was weak and causing falls is now strong and preventing falls.
So is faith at the beginning of our heavenward trek. It is so weak that we can’t even get started walking. But with exercise even with just a smidgen of faith, we grow stronger and stronger in faith over time. The object of our faith is the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior and Redeemer who is mighty to save. He gives us strength for the day and magnifies our tiny faith in Him to produce the miracle we seek.
The prophet Alma taught: “But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words.”[iii]
“Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out? And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.”[iv]
“But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.”[v]
[i] Luke 8:49-50
[ii] Mark 9:24
[iii] Alma 32:27
[iv] Matthew 17:19-20 In Luke 17:6 faith plucks up a sycamore tree and casts it into the sea.
[v] Hebrews 11:6