While Jesus was talking with the disciples, they seem to have been near a sycamine tree, a fruit tree which grows in warm lands, and sometimes is a large tree.
The disciples had seen many acts showing the power of God but seem to have felt they had little faith to trust what He could do for them. They said to Jesus, “Lord, increase our faith.” His answer to their request was, “If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you.”
For a tree to come up from the roots and plant itself in the sea, by their speaking to it, was impossible for them to do of themselves; they could not move even a small bush by speaking to it.
Believing God’s Power
Jesus was teaching them by this that they did not need great faith. God would do for them if they had only a little faith. A mustard seed is a very tiny seed, and however little faith they had, God would do for them what was impossible for them to do by themselves. It was not their faith that would do great things, but God.
They would not ask for great and impossible things to see miracles, but whatever their need, and however impossible for them to do anything, they could trust God’s wisdom, and they were to ask for what would be for His praise, not simply to please themselves.
It is not told that the disciples ever asked God for a tree to be moved, but many things are written of what He did for them, as impossible for them to have done themselves as to move a tree into the sea.
Not very long after this, when the Lord Jesus had returned to heaven, one of the disciples, Peter, told a man who had never walked in all his life to rise up and walk, and the man rose and walked. It was not because of Peter’s power, but because he believed in God’s power.
There was another man who had been paralyzed and could not move from his bed for eight years; Peter told him to rise and he rose up.
One day Peter was called to come to a house where a woman had died and was ready for burial. Peter said to her, “Arise” and took her hand, and she arose and stood among her friends again.
Once God sent an angel to open the prison doors and let Peter and other disciples go free. Another time Peter had been put in the inner room of a prison, his hands chained to two soldiers, so he could do nothing for himself. But the others in the city who believed God prayed for Peter, and God sent an angel to that inner prison cell, who told Peter to rise; the chains fell off his hands, and he followed the angel out of the prison, being free again to tell people of the Lord.
Many, many things have been done since for those who trusted God, more than we could tell, or know now. His people may never have much faith, yet He does impossible things for them, not always seen or known by others.
See Acts 3:1-10; Acts 4:22; 5:19; 9:34, 40; 12:7.
Further Meditation
1. What were the disciples to ask for in prayer?
2. How do we react in our lives when we measure a problem by our perceived ability to meet it rather than God’s power? How did David respond to the challenges he faced with Goliath, Saul, and Absalom?
3. If you haven’t already read Faith by H. P. Barker, then you are likely to find it a wonderful, simple introduction to the essential subject of faith.