Faith as Small as a… Mouse?

“He said to them, ‘Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.’” – Matthew 17:20

What does it mean to have strong faith? In an ever-challenging world, Christian faith is placed in the crosshairs all too often where being a genuine believer was once the norm, now praying in public over dinner is now the rarity, where conversations of religion and religious belief was at a time completely acceptable now leads to a discussion with HR. Christian faith is belief and trust in Jesus as Lord and Savior and to live out what the Bible teaches us. That means that when we live out the abundant life that Jesus has called for us we are by nature not going to conform to the social norms of society and we are able to do this because our belief is in God who is our source of joy, affirmation, and validation rather than people, titles, money, and society.

Our God asks for our whole being, which is actually very little, and he tells us in Matthew that if our faith is as big as a tiny mustard seed then mountains could be moved. All we need is a tiny bit of belief in our large unfathomable God. Pure and childlike faith is all that is required in order to do wonderful things because then we are not thinking and doing things in the mind of ourselves but seeing the world and doing the work God has set out for us for His glory.

We see an example of this whole dedication to faith in Christian apologist and fantasy author C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, and the expectations when you read these books of the character with the most faith would be the high kings and queens of Narnia or the titular character of Prince Caspian or at least any of the main characters. But faith is actually most purely seen in a talking mouse, Reepicheep, who is governed by a destiny that was placed within him at birth, which he did not fully understand but would live out. Reepicheep had this longing to go east because a prophecy was spoken over him when he was born and ever since his heart and his actions guided him for this purpose. He, like us, knew what his prime directive was and his eyes were locked towards heaven. The book the Voyage of The Dawn Treader does not even tell the readers what happens to him as he ventures off beyond the horizon that is until we get to the last book of the series where it is this small mouse with pure faith that greets the main characters at the gates of the garden of Aslan.

Reepicheep the mouse is an example of what it means to live a life of faith. He did not know what it meant at every step to go east but he knew that that is where his God desired for him to go and for that reason he would seek east for his whole life. We know what God wants for each and every one of us already, to love God and to love others. We may not know all the steps but if our eyes are locked towards heaven then the steps to get there, no matter how bumpy or smooth, is all just a simple act of faith.