My whole life I have been taught that faith is like a seed. But the Spirit has only just helped me to understand a little more of what this actually means. I’ve always assumed that it was my responsibility and thus it was under my control to make my faith grow bigger or smaller. This is true, but not in the way that I imagined. I have always thought that if I want my faith to grow stronger, then I have to want it more, to exercise more willpower, to work harder at it. But if faith is like a seed, then we can’t really force it to grow taller or faster on our own terms. We can make sure there are no rocks in the soil, we can water it and pull up the weeds around it and we can prune it and put down fertilizer and chase off birds and insects and other pests and we can anchor it to stakes to protect it against the wind. We can do all of these things and all of them will help the plant to grow, but it will grow on its own terms. If we water it more, it will not grow faster. If our little plant is a currant bush, then we can’t get it to grow as tall or to provide as much shade as an elm tree, nor could we coax it with all of our labor to produce any kind of fruit except currant berries. So, if our efforts don’t actually get our faith to do exactly what we want to do, then what is the point? “Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.” (James 2:17). If we neglect our little plant of faith and do no work to water it or make sure that it gets enough light and keep the pests and the weeds back, then it will die. Our job is to keep our plant alive and healthy and then let the plant get on with doing what it does best - grow! Just as we can’t use willpower or desire to make a plant grow a centimeter taller on our own terms, we can’t use willpower or desire to make our faith grow any stronger on our own terms. Faith is a gift from God that we can choose to plant in the soil of our hearts and that through our works we can make sure that that seed can sprout and grow and one day bear fruit.
