I used to think faith had to feel big to count. Like it needed to show up as certainty, or as some unshakable confidence that everything was going to work out exactly how I wanted. So on the days when all I had was a shaky, barely-there kind of trust, I figured that didn’t really qualify. I figured I was failing at faith.
But I keep coming back to this one verse, and it keeps correcting me.
“If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” — Matthew 17:20
A mustard seed is tiny. You could lose one in the carpet and never find it again. And that’s the whole point — Jesus isn’t asking for a mountain’s worth of faith to move a mountain. He’s asking for a seed’s worth. He’s asking for the small, imperfect, barely-holding-on kind of faith. The kind I actually have on most days.
Small faith is still real faith
Here’s what I’ve learned about seeds: they don’t do their work by being impressive. They do it buried, out of sight, in the dark, before there’s any proof they’re working at all. A seed doesn’t need you to understand how growth happens. It just needs to be planted.
So if your faith today is small — if it’s more of a whisper than a shout, more of a “God, I’m not sure, but I’m still here” than a bold declaration — that’s not a lesser faith. That’s seed faith. And seed faith is exactly what’s being asked of you.
I started wearing a little mustard seed pendant a while back, sealed right behind glass, as a reminder I could actually carry with me. Some mornings I touch it before I even remember why. It’s become a small, physical way of telling myself: you don’t need more faith today. You need to use the faith you’ve got.
If that kind of reminder would help you too, I made a little Mustard Seed Faith Pendant Necklace for the shop — a real mustard seed sealed behind glass, something to hold onto on the hard-to-believe days.
Journal prompt
Grab a notebook or just sit with this one for a minute: What’s one “mountain” in your life right now that you’ve been waiting to feel bigger faith before you’ll even speak to it? What would it look like to bring your seed-sized faith to it today, instead of waiting for it to grow first?
You don’t have to feel ready. You don’t have to feel certain. You just have to plant what you’ve got and let God do what only He can do with it. That’s the whole deal. That’s always been the whole deal.
If you want more little reminders like this one for your home or your everyday, I’d love for you to stop by and Shop My Cozy Cottage Collection.
With so much love,
Momma J 🤍
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