Just a Teaspoon

Last week I made a batch of cookies and used some vanilla extract that turned out to be--to put it nicely--questionable. Just one tiny teaspoon of "what-on-earth-is-wrong-with-this?" vanilla, and the whole batch was ruined. I know you might think that you can't ruin a batch of chocolate chip cookies. Trust me, you can.

It's hard to believe that one teaspoon of something bad could override cupfuls of sugar, butter, and other deliciousness, but it did.


I could see this from the angle that one bad apple ruins the whole bunch. True enough. But I can't forget just how oh-so-yummy a batch of cookies can be with a bit of vanilla in the mix. Makes me think of mustard seed faith--how just the tiniest bit of faith is enough to override heaps of doubt and discouragement.


If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, "Move from here to there and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you" (Matthew 17:20). Not even mountains in all their grandeur can trump the tiniest seed of faith.


Think of how the tiniest flicker of light can so easily pierce through darkness. Yes, even all-consuming darkness is consumed by the least little bit of light. And in the same way, when everything around us speaks against hope, our wish-it-were-greater FAITH is sufficient to permeate our circumstances.

Ever feel like you've got only the tiniest teaspoon of faith in the midst of overwhelming odds? When even a shred of hope exists in seemingly hopeless circumstances, we have the authority in Jesus' name to take one look at the mountains before us and say, "Move on out of here."

For a teaspoon of faith is far greater than the mountain.