Perhaps a read of these two "moments" could stir up a genuine personal response to the question "How strong is my faith TODAY? Habakkuk, the prophet, challenges God because he is annoyed by the violence and grace injustices that are happening in his times and before. Why has the great God allowed these travesties to happen and then continue? A look at our world today might well bring us to demand the same question of God. Armies, gratefully, are not invading our land but what about the other destructive forces we see around us?
There is the (1) the destruction by nature that has washed out so many people' lives; (2) severe and unusual heat that has taken many lives and melted away many plans; (greed) and carelessness that have oiled the Gulf of Mexico and many components of our ecological world, ruining many natural processes, debilitating many employments, creating many homes locked in poverty; (4) local, state and federal governments scarred by scandal and injustices; and, (5) the many places in the world where violence and war have leveled homes, towns and buried so many futures.
Jesus encounters an obviously faithful man in the gospel. He is disappointed that the disciples could not cure his impaired son. The father hears Jesus' words of exasperation: "O faithless and perverse generation .... How long will I endure you?" How long can he put up with them? However, he cures the son because of the father's faith. The disciples then ask "Why couldn't we drive the evil spirits, those demons from the boy? Jesus answers directly and simply: "Even you have so little faith!" And he assures all those hearing him speak that faith, even the size of the tiniest seed, the mustard seed, could move obstacles. "Nothing is impossible for you."
So, we are confronted boldly as well: "what is the content of your faith?" How strong is the relationship between you and your God? How free is your life of the sins, the injustices, the greed, the hatred that diminishes the power of your faith? Could it move the bolder in the picture above???
