Jesus said to his disciples,
“Things that cause sin will inevitably occur,
but woe to the one through whom they occur.
It would be better for him if a millstone were put around his neck
and he be thrown into the sea
than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin.
Be on your guard!
If your brother sins, rebuke him;
and if he repents, forgive him.
And if he wrongs you seven times in one day
and returns to you seven times saying, ‘I am sorry,’
you should forgive him.”

And the Apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.”
The Lord replied, “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed,
you would say to this mulberry tree,
‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.” Luke 17:1-6

Increase our faith. Three simple words, yet they are one of the hardest things to do. It can be especially hard when you are going through things in life. I understand that firsthand, and know that it is increasingly hard to have faith when bad things are happening, seemingly all around you. Increasing your faith tends to be the last thing on your mind.

For me, I find that when things are going horribly wrong, I move into a childlike state when it comes to faith. The first thing that I want to do is ask why. Why? Why is all of this, insert whatever situation today you want to have, happening to me? It happens to be the exact same question that my six year old asks when she doesn’t want to do something, or she tries to stall from doing something. So, there it is, I revert back to my inner faith six year old and ask why. Shouldn’t be that way, but I do. Even when asking that, I am demanding of an answer. As if God would be looking down and saying, here, here is the answer you have been looking for. Instead, I get the same answer that my six year old gets… because, that is why.

For me, I go through peaks and valleys in my faith. One thing that does not change though, I know that God is just that, the Authority. Just like I have to be the father for my daughter and my son, he is eternally my father. He knows that sometimes I can not handle the answer at the moment. I need to hear that stern tone of just do it because I said so, and quit trying to control the situation. I have to remember who is in change of things, and it is not me. That is the job that God has in my life, and it should be retained only for Him. When I try to take over, it’s like my three year old “driving” my car in park. The steering wheel is just a moving, but there is no real motion out of the thing.

Amazingly, even in that answer of because, there is something to be said about it. God will not give me anything more than I can handle in one day. Even though it seems like it is more than I can handle at the time, it is still all that I can handle. And the proper response to why I am ready to handle that is just that, because I can.  He knows me better that I know myself sometimes, and because of that, He knows where I am in my growth, and even in my faith. Even though I should not be asking like a six year old, I honestly think that He expects that from me.  I think that He wants me to be that six year old again, and He knows that sometimes I just need to know that I can do something because He said I can.