The Mustard Egg

“It was because you do not have enough faith,” answered Jesus. “I assure you that if you have faith as big as a mustard seed, you can say to this hill, Go from here to there! and it will go. You could do anything!” Matthew 17:20 Good News Translation

For my fourteenth birthday, my parents gave me a charm bracelet. It was a popular gift for teen-age girls at the time, so kind of surprising that I got one. But anyway, over the years I even amassed a few charms. My sister Pat bought me a tiny Edelweiss bell in Germany. Someone gave me a cocker spaniel

charm; who knew that 25 years later I would have two cocker spaniels.

My aunt Helen gave me the one with the little seed under glass. The inscription on the reverse side of it reads: “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, nothing shall be impossible unto you. Matthew 17:20” Once one of my friends made the mistake of calling it a mustard egg. That kind of stuck, as dumb things do.

Elsewhere in the Bible is the explanation that the mustard seed starts out so small but from the tiny seed it grows into the largest plant in the garden. The mustard egg – I mean seed – doesn’t think to itself, “I am too small to amount to anything.” Instead it does what God gave it to. It doesn’t question its goal, it just does it. It grows.

So, just as Jesus told his disciples, that is what we need to do. Have faith strong enough to make anything happen. Don’t think about it, don’t come up with excuses, just do it.

Lord, strengthen my faith. Remind me daily that with You at my side, nothing will be too much for You and me to handle. Nothing will be impossible.