What Faith?

5The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!"

6He replied, "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it will obey you.

7"Suppose one of you had a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Would he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, 'Come along now and sit down to eat'? 8Would he not rather say, 'Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink'? 9Would he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? 10So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.' " Luke 17:5-9 (The Message)

This morning I was reading this passage. I've probably read this passage several times, but this morning something stood out to me that I had never caught before (which is the awesome thing about this Bible. Every time you read it, God can show you something different).

The disciples were asking for their faith to be increased. Jesus didn't tell them how to have more faith. He didn't give them any special instructions or "to-do" lists that would increase your faith. Jesus didn't give a 10 steps to having more faith sermon, where every point started with the letter "B." He told them a story, that to me doesn't have anything to do with faith. It has to do with doing what God says.

I think too often I get caught up on how to have more faith, like the disciples. I look for a plan in the Bible. I look for a secret that I and every other person who has ever studied the Bible had missed. And If I find it then I will be able to move mountains and bushes and do all kinds of cool stuff. (I would use it to move slower moving cars in front of me) I would use it to heal my headaches. I would use it to heal my son (who is sick right now. He's been puking like crazy the last couple of days. In fact we got a big purple splot right on our white carpet).

Maybe I shouldn't worry about having the faith that can raise the dead or shoot demons out of people. Maybe God gives me enough faith to get me through the things that I need to do for him. I've never thought of me in the way of this story, as God's servant. I need to serve God before I even serve myself. I know this, but I've never thought of it in this sense before. I still want to try to figure this out. Faith is such an interesting thing, and I continue want to grow with mine, but maybe I need to look at it from a different perspective.

Ducks

This morning Suzy, Parker and I went to Brackenridge park. Parker has started really loving animals. When he gets upset, I take him outside and show him the birdies, and he calms and down and gets happy. So we went to the Park to feed the ducks. The river runs right through the middle of the park and usually there are a million ducks around there.
So we parked and walked down to the river and we saw several ducks down there, so we started to throw bread at them. A couple ate a piece and then spit it out, and then they swam away. The ducks here are picky and didn't want to eat the HEB generic bread. (A couple of weeks ago we tried to feed a swan some french fries, and the swan didn't want them either). The sea gulls in California would eat anything that was edible. So it was a little disappointing that the ducks didn't want any of our bread. I was hoping they would come close so Parker could see them better.
We walked along the river and saw several groups of ducks and geese, but none of them wanted our bread. Parker didn't seem to care, he still loved seeing the duckys.
Then we saw a group of ducks and one of them started freaking out. It looked as if he was caught up in a tree branch, and he was splashing around and just really going nuts. At one point he looked like he shook himself loose, but he just went upside down and kept on convulsing in the water. We were watching this happen, and we are on the other side of the river, but even the people on the duck's side weren't trying to help either. And there were about 10 ducks around that didn't try to help their friend. Eventually, the stuck duck stopped moving and went belly-up and died. It was sad for me and Suzy. Parker didn't know what was going on. He was watching the other ducks and a puppy that was near us. I'm not much of an animal lover, but seeing that happen seemed unreal and weird.
People are hurting all around. People are dying. People are starving. People are so sad and depressed and hopeless. And sometimes, I'm oblivious, just walking by and not even noticing that somebody is struggling right next to me. I pray that God opens my eyes to see the hurt, and I pray for the courage and strength to do something about it.