How You Can Make God Smile

How Much Faith Do We Need?

When I was a young girl, my mom wore a necklace that intrigued me. It was a clear round capsule, and it contained a single mustard seed. The seed was extremely tiny. My mom told me that she wore the necklace to remind her of the following Bible verse: “Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you” (Matt. 17:20).

If we give our little seed of faith to the maker of heaven and earth, things change, things move, things bow down, things are created! Nothing is impossible for us because nothing is impossible for Him, and He lives in us.

So why is it that even when we apply all the faith we can muster and our faith is placed in Jesus, our mountains seem to stay firmly planted and immovable? We believe the answer to that question is rooted in our expectation and our definition of movement.

Matthew 17:20 does not say the mountain will move instantly. We like “instant” answers, but God does not always work that way. We may look at other people and determine that the answers to their prayers have come instantly because we happened to be there the moment the healing took place or the moment the house sale came through. We don’t know the emotional preparation that took place before the healing or the amount of renovation that occurred before the sale.

In God’s economy, movement is a process—even movement that appears instantaneous.

Matthew 17:20 also does not say the mountain will move as one large mass. Have you ever played the game Jenga? To set up the game, you make a tower by placing rectangular blocks in a crisscross pattern. The object of the game is to remove a block without causing the tower to tumble. There is a trick to finding the block that is movable. You tap on the ends to discover which ones will slide out of the stack without disrupting the entire structure. Often one block is immovable until the blocks around it are removed.

We have seen God move mountains in a similar way, one block at a time. We speak to the mountain and tell it to move by forgiving someone. Once that block goes, we speak to the mountain and tell it to move by renouncing an ungodly inner vow. Once that block goes, we speak to the mountain again and tell it to move by asking God to heal our current broken relationships. Eventually our mountain moves from here to there, and we have not crumbled in the process.

As We Are Going

After Jesus rose from the dead and before He ascended to heaven, He gave His disciples very specific instructions. Many in the church call this the Great Commission: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matt. 28:19-20).

The words “therefore go” are literally translated “as you are going.” In other words, as we live and go about our everyday lives we are to live out of who we are, with our destinies and promises going with us. We are not to be consumed looking for the person(s), the place(s), the thing(s) that fit with our promises before we serve. God fulfills our destinies and promises as we go. Each day lived in obedience to Christ is a day full of faith that pleases Him and holds the probability of our miracles being fulfilled as we are going!

This is the faith that makes God smile, the faith that moves mountains. It is faith that steps out in love, that releases control to God and that is lived out in daily acts of obedience to Christ.  

Mark and Tammy Endres founded Hand of Jesus Ministries Inc., a prayer and equipping resource to impact a hurting world. They are licensed and ordained through the Apostolic Network of Global Awakening. Their latest book, When Heaven Seems Silent, from which this article was adapted, released in August.

Mark and Tammy Endres talk about their incredible faith journey in writing a new book, When Heaven Seems Silent, at endres.charismamag.com