Ain't no Mountain High Enough

Early in the morning, as he was on his way back to the city, he was hungry. Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, "May you never bear fruit again!" Immediately the tree withered.

When the disciples saw this, they were amazed. "How did the fig tree wither so quickly?" they asked.

Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer." – Matthew 21: 18-22

The moral of the story is… Don’t come between Jesus and his food.

Wow…

Ok, no really… the interesting part is the last paragraph of course. The tree was just a demonstration for the disciples. But Jesus said that if we have enough faith then we can throw mountains into the sea.

That’s interesting.

I’m sure some readers look at this and are like for real? I am not Neo and we are not in the matrix. So what’s next? The walls are gonna bend when I flex?

Who knows? Maybe they will…

But what I love about this message is that he starts it off by saying that we have to have faith and not doubt.

Have you ever had moments in life where you decided to do something that you thought was impossible?

For me it was the master cleanse.

I love food. Not only do I love food I love all that goes into eating food. I like the hanging out with people aspect, I like going to new places, trying new things. I like healthy food, I like unhealthy food.

I even like chewing the food… (yes I’m aware of how crazy that sounds)

So when some friends of mine did the master cleanse several years back I was like…

Y’all must be crazy.

For the uninitiated, the master cleanse is a “cleanse” where you drink this mixture of lemon juice, maple syrup, water and cayenne pepper all day. Then at night you drink a laxative tea and in the morning you drink a salt water mixture to flush you out. You’re supposed to do this for at least 10 days.

In the beginning it is as pleasant as it sounds but it gets better I promise.

So several months later I felt moved to do it as part of a fast to get closer to God.

I thought that it was literally impossible for me. But even so I started it and took it one day at a time. Finally I made it to the tenth day.

There is something truly miraculous about trying to move the mountains in our lives.

When I accomplished this impossible goal I felt like I was capable of doing anything that I set my mind too. I looked back on the cleanse and realized that it was really just a small bump in the road. But scaling this bump made me so much stronger.

Most of us have to start with the small bumps that seem like mountains. And with each bump and hill and mountain that we climb the legs of our faith get stronger and stronger.

If we make our lives about climbing the mountains… soon enough we’ll be running instead of walking; and then flying instead of running.

And then one day we will do like Jesus said. We won’t need to climb the mountains or dodge the bullets anymore. We will just tell the mountains to move, and they will hurl themselves into the sea.

It takes faith, though, to take the first step; as well as each and every step afterward.

Today’s Reading: Exodus 27-28: Matthew 21: 1-22