What God Can Do With a Mustard Seed of Faith...

Matthew 21:22

And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.

Matthew 17:20

And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.

Isaiah 41:20

That they may see, and know, and consider, and understand together, that the hand of the LORD hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath created it.

It is always amazing to see what the Lord can and will do when we exercise faith in Him. And the most amazing thing is that He doesn't ask us to have a lot of faith...just the faith of a grain of mustard seed...I was thinking about that today, and Mama and I were talking, Jonathan and I talked about it, too. I'm not that spiritual, and I often fail Him terribly, especially in the faith department, but I was thinking about the times that though my faith seemed very small, the Lord answered those prayers. I think that in those times that my faith was small, I really saw and understood that the hand of the Lord had done those things. It was not because of my so-called great faith, but it was because of Him! It was during those times that I truly realized that there was nothing too hard for Him! God is so good!

Asking and Receiving...a little bit of our story...

I have been thinking about posting about this subject for a while, but just haven't really sat down and taken the time to post about it. We have been busy for about the last couple weeks, and if you have been reading my blog, you know why, and part of that why (Jonathan) is the reason that I am posting about this.
Now, we can get down to business:

I have been reading through my Bible this year, and yes, I have gotten behind (I ended up in Proverbs for about a month). I have been catching up in Genesis, and first of all, the story of how Abraham and Sarah wanted a child really stood out to me, but that is not the main story that I want to pull out. Let's look over in Geneses 24, I am not going to post all the verses on this post, but here we are at the time in Isaac's life, when he needed a wife. Abraham did not want Isaac marrying just anyone, but he wanted someone of their own country (let me put a little side note in here...we as Christians need to have this mentality...that we should want someone from our "country" Heaven, meaning a saved person, someone with the same beliefs, etc.). So, he called his most trusted servant, and made him promise to go into the land of his people and bring Isaac his chosen bride. What a huge responsibility this servant had! Can you imagine? Being given such a heavy load to carry?

Well, as we read on, we see that the servant was worried that this lady would not follow him, an unknown man, a servant no less, into a strange country. (verse 5)

Anyway, to make a long story short, the servant heads off into the land, and this is the best part! He is riding his camel into the town at the evening time, just the right moment, just the time the Lord wanted him there. He headed straight to the well. Can you feel the anticipation? I'm sure he was a tad bit worried or concerned, but I can imagine him remembering the prayers that his master's God answered in the past, so he decided to ask the Lord for direction:

Genesis 24:12-14 "And he said, O LORD God of my master Abraham, I pray thee, send me good speed this day, and shew kindness unto my master Abraham.
Behold, I stand here by the well of water; and the daughters of the men of the city come out to draw water:

And let it come to pass, that the damsel to whom I shall say, Let down thy pitcher, I pray thee, that I may drink; and she shall say, Drink, and I will give thy camels drink also: let the same be she that thou hast appointed for thy servant Isaac; and thereby shall I know that thou hast shewed kindness unto my master."

What a specific prayer! Do you know what happened? The prayer was answered in every detail!

"And it came to pass, before he was done speaking, that, behold, Rebekah came out, who was born of Bethuel, son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham's brother, with her pitcher upon her shoulder."

I just love how the Bible gives us every detail. It goes on in the next verse about how beautiful she was not only on the outside, but on the inside, for she was pure. Of course, most everyone knows how the story ends. The servant asks for a drink of water. She not only gives him a drink, but waters his camels also without being asked of him (that shows her willingness to serve!). In verse 21, which I didn't really notice this as I was reading, but it just stood out to me, he kind of stood back a minute...it sounds like to me that he was in awe of the fact of what the Lord had done, and was the Lord really doing this for him. This is my main point...which I know that some of you were probably wondering when I was going to get to it, right?

We all know how the story ends, but I want to talk about prayer for a minute.

The Bible says a lot about prayer:

"And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive." Matt. 21:22

"Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and suplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made know unto God." Phil. 4:6

"...the effectual fervant prayer of a righteous man availeth much." James 5:15

"For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and His ears are open unto their prayers..." I Pet. 3:12

"Again I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven." Matt. 18:19

I could go on and on...Why are we so afraid to ask our heavenly Father for things? For our needs? For our desires? For our simple wants? I think sometimes that we are more likely to pray about an urgent situation than to pray about little things that we think don't mean anything to God. Have you ever thought about how silly that really is? Luke 11 talks about that, how that here we are, earthly people, we know how to give things to our children, but why do we question our heavenly Father? Will He not give us the same and even better? Will He not provide for not only our needs but our wants and desires? (Psalms 37:4)

Before I close, I'll give a little testimony of how I know that the Lord will indeed answer!

Most everyone of you have seen the pictures of Jonathan and I, and have read the announcement of our courtship and everything. I don't believe that I have gone into great detail about how the Lord brought it about.

A few years ago, I met Courtney (from Courtney's Contemplations) at a Sword Conference. To be honest, I don't remember the year, but that is how I came to know blogging was through her! I think we went to Wendy's or something like that for some fellowship, and I happened to notice Jonathan (he is Courtney's cousin, yes I thought he was handsome..haha...), but I didn't really think about him after that. I just went about my own life, and our families would meet at the Sword for a couple years. We never talked or anything. While I was at West Coast, my family attended Courtney's wedding, and my sister, Rebekah happened to mention Jonathan's family sitting near them. The thought passed through my mind then about Jonathan, but I just kind of passed it off and didn't think about it again. I again just went about my normal life.

Last year, the Lord just began to impress on my heart to pray for him and about him. I still had not spoken to him. I knew a few things about him from Courtney's blog and seeing him at the Sword, but I didn't know why the Lord had placed him on my heart, but I still prayed. I prayed for several months, sometimes I felt like the Lord was going to answer my prayer, and other times, I just felt like giving up, but something told me to keep praying for him. On December 2, I had been praying for several months like I said, but I wanted Jonathan to be the one that I would court only if he was the Lord's will (that's what I had been praying for the whole time...that this would only come to pass if it was the Lord's will). That night, I asked the Lord to give me this as a Christmas present if this was His will. Do you know what happened?

On December 3, the very next morning, Mama and we girls were at the church decorating it for Christmas. Daddy was in his office, and around 10:22AM, Jonathan called daddy to ask permission to court me! Daddy was crying on the phone when Jonathan was talking to him...I don't think he knew that at the time...he gave his consent. Daddy called Mama into his office to speak to her about it, and then, she went into the classroom where I was working. She had this really serious look on her face and said that Daddy needed to speak to me in the office. I thought "oh no, what have I done?", but as soon as I walked in, Daddy said, "Jonathan just called." As soon as he said that, I started crying. I could hardly believe what the Lord had done! To think that the Lord had answered a specific prayer like that...I felt so unworthy! The Lord is truly good!

I can truly say that the Lord can and will answer a specific prayer if we but ask Him too...look at salvation, the Lord answers that prayer. If the Lord answers our prayer about salvation, why would He not answer our "little" prayers? Our little wants and desires if it is according to His perfect will for our life? Is anything too hard for God?

Graphic found here