By Samantha McKenzie

“Faith  is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.

I used to carry around a mustard seed in my purse many years ago. I wrapped it in a small tissue and tucked it away in the slit of my wallet. Every time I reached for some cash, I’d see it there in the corner. It was my way of reminding myself to keep my focus and to hold on to my faith.

Jesus could have used anything to describe this principle of faith. But instead, he chose to use one of the tiniest things to illustrate a grand message: If we would just have faith, the size of a mustard seed, we could move mountains.

A mustard seed. It starts out small but grows into something greater. It has the potential to expand, just as we do.

Faith and hope and belief – all words that call on us to have conviction and patience to see the fruits of our labor materialize. Puzzles, like life, appear in pieces. Faith is about taking small steps without seeing what’s ahead. It’s about trusting in something, even when we can’t see the whole picture. Faith is a promise that each small feat can lead to greater things. And that faith, like a mustard seed, grows with each effort we take towards it.

“In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don’t.” Blaise Pascal

I eventually lost that old wallet and the mustard seed that I carried in it. But I learned to live without the symbolism that it represented. And I never forgot this:

“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.”  Matthew 17:20

Today , I renew my faith and trust that each obstacle that I face will be removed. That even though I worry about this and that, God has already made a way. My job is to believe and to just walk into it with my mustard seed.