“For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. Mark 11:23 (NKJV)
I’ve always loved this passage, this quote by Jesus. It conjures up pictures of this huge mountain sitting in front of me. And as I stare at the mountain and speak to it, all of a sudden the mountain just jumps up and rolls over into the sea. Not. It Rarely happens that way! It rarely happens that way. Faith is progressive. It happens little by little, inch by inch, line upon line, precept upon precept it, here a little there a little. Most of the time, this is how things work.
So over the years, I have learned to change my perception of what the mountain being cast into the sea looks like. I’ve learned to see the water flowing down the mountain through cracks and tunnels and gradually eroding the mountain little by little. I see the mountain encountering huge rain storms at various points in time and then one day that mountain that seemed so tall has literally washed into the sea.
When you look at this concept on a practical level. Anything we dreaming about; anything we’re focusing our life on, We have a tendency to think of the project, the goal, the vision, the task ahead as one big mountain. In reality, that mountain can be broken up into smaller pieces.
I remember as a budding property developer, I wanted to do a conversion on a project and the amount of money I needed to do it just seemed insurmountable. I knew the items that I needed to complete this project and a part of the conversion was adding a bathroom.
I had an idea of what I wanted it to look like. So one day I was out and about and saw a great deal on a vanity. I bought it and it sat for over a year. Then another time, I had just got the dimensions for the shower. That day I honestly had almost no money! But I knew I needed a shower pan. As I was feeling somewhat discouraged in my project, I got up and decided to just go look and see what I could find.
And lo and behold, as I walked into the discount store, there was my shower pan. The exact size I needed on sale for $30!Yes, you heard me right! A 400+ dollar shower pan was on sale for $30. It was just a bucket of the dirt of my mountain, but I cast that bucket of dirt into the sea and bought my shower pan.
Over the course of a year, I acquired all the materials I needed for that bathroom. So by the time I actually had a little money and could hire a contractor, most of the articles inside the bathroom were already purchased. Such is how it happens with the mountains in our lives.
If you focus on the whole thing all at once, it can be overwhelming and quite honestly you probably don’t have the faith to do it. But if you use the little faith that you have to handle the little piece in front of you, sooner or later you will take that mountain down. You’ll finish the bathroom! And another lesson in life will be learned. Your faith will grow and you will look up and there will be a brand new mountain to conquer.