Small Faith, Great God
You have probably read in scripture: “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.” (Luke 17:6)
And maybe, like myself, you have approached faith in a way that if you had a lot or “great” faith, you would be given a supernatural “green light” and be able to maneuver through obstacles of life with some ease. In other words, “if you just have great trust or faith in God, things will just work out somehow.” We’ve created a virtue of going through life in vague uncertainty and labeling that as “walking in faith”. Faith becomes this separate thing that becomes a source of pride when we think we have a lot of it.
Yet scripture tells us, with faith the size of a mustard seed… great things can result.
Small Faith, Great God is a compilation of N.T. Wright’s past sermons strung together into book form. It is one of the most recent books that has stretched my understanding of what it means to have faith in ways that are not only convicting but awe-inspiring. N.T. Wright has done such a service in creating this book. It’s simple to read yet has such profound depth all at the same time. Books on theology can be really dense and difficult to get through so I was pleasantly surprised when I couldn’t put this book down and at the same time received such a rich foundation of theology.
Quotes from the book:
“What matters is not so much the faith itself as what it is faith in.”
“Faith is not the mysterious ability to sail through life with a secret key that unlocks all the doors. Faith is the willingness to think and act on the basis of what we know of God (which may be very little) and to trust him that he will not let us down.”
“If we are going to understand how faith can be the opposite of sight and doubt, we must stop talking about faith in the abstract and start being more specific. Faith, you see, isn’t something useful or valuable in itself. Faith, as we were thinking in chapter two, is a window, which exists not for its own sake but so that we can see something through it — and so that we can let light into the room. Faith is meaningless unless it looks out on something specific.”
Faith. It’s a lot less about us… much more about Him. The book is centered around giving you a deep, foundational understanding of who God is and why He is so great, as it is not great faith we need, but faith in a great God. Buy this book. You’ll find yourself highlighting/underlining every page like a toddler who has found a box of crayons and a white wall.
For His kingdom, from my bookshelf to yours,
Vick
