The Gift Of Faith

It has never been very hard, and it seems to be getting easier and easier every day, to look out at all of the cruel things we do to each other and all of the horrible things that seem to happen to us by random happenstance and measure up our own flawed and self-serving and feeble efforts against the sheer enormity of the combined misery of billions of suffering souls and utterly abandon hope and plunge without reservation into the abyss of cynicism and nihilism. It is the most natural conclusion in the world to view humans as a cancerous disease destroying the planet and nothing we do matters. That is why in the face of such absurdity faith is such a gift. With everything that is going on in the world, the fact that so many of us choose to believe in something, to believe in anything, is a miracle! But the truly wonderful thing about the gift of faith is that it carries within it bonus gifts. It is true that a single mustard seed might yield enough flavor to help season a very small hot dog, but if that same mustard seed is planted in the ground, then with a little hard work and perseverance, it can grow up into a mighty plant and yield enough seeds to cover an entire mountain of hot dogs in condiments. Faith, like a seed, is a gift from God, but we have to do our part to prepare the soil and remove the stones of unbelief and the weed out the thorns of worldly desires and chase away the birds of doubt and fear so that our little seed of faith can grow. If we find that our faith has shriveled to almost nothing and miracles and blessings have almost ceased, then maybe it's because every time our Heavenly Father gives us a mustard seed of faith, we try to eat it instead of planting it to see if it will grow. I know that as we receive the gift of faith with reverence and gratitude and a determination to cultivate it with all diligence, then we will soon enough have more seeds of faith than we know what to do with.