About That Faith

I just started teaching a class in a course of study for adults called Diakonia here in Orlando.
The course is "Ministry in Daily Life."
One of the assignments is for the class participants to complete a daily journal using a method called "S.O.A.P." Each read the same assigned Scripture each day and then journal about it. S = Scripture, O = Observation, A = Application, P = Prayer. From the total Scripture they read for the day they pick just one piece that caught their mind and heart. Then they write.
Takes about 20-30 minutes for the whole thing each day.
I'll be doing this along with my class participants, and I'll try to post as many of my daily journal S.O.A.P's as possible.
Here's a start:

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

“Enough Faith?”
The Nature of Faith

S = Scripture

“ ‘You don’t have enough faith,’ Jesus told them. ‘I assure you, even if you had faith as small as a mustard seed you could say to this mountain, “Move from here to there,” and it would move. Nothing would be impossible.’ “
Matthew 18:20

O = Observation
A = Application

So Tuesday night at the new Diakonia class I start teaching on the topic of the nature of faith – and I say that it’s not about quantity. You can’t get more faith, just faith. And I say – the main topic – it’s not something you do, but it’s something done to you. Then, the first reading in S.O.A.P., the daily bible journal discipline I introduced to the class and required them to do, has this from Jesus: “You don’t have enough faith”!!!! Yeah, that’s Jesus for you – deconstructing the nice worlds we build. But wait. Listen. Seriously, I think he’s not saying anything about quantity after all. Because his qualifier, his object lesson, his metaphor for illustrative purposes to tell of this gigantic “more” is not a Mac Truck (I know, they didn’t have those then, but still), but rather a mustard seed. If we had a mustard seed faith we could mountains? Really? Do you know how big, how “more,” a mustard seed is? Okay then. Here’s what’s going on – he’s saying they have no faith, not a small faith that needs to be super-sized. If they had any faith, mountains would move. Good enough, but now we still are left in a quandary, because it seems harder to us to produce something from nothing than to grow something larger. These days I work a lot in a greenhouse. I know how to grow plants that’ll knock your socks off. But I can’t for the life of me figure out how to make a seed. So, back to the key point about the nature of faith: it’s not something you do but something done to you. That’s the deal, and the critical point. And the subject of another posting! Or two!

P = Prayer

Lord Jesus, give (more!) faith to me today!
Amen.