Waking Up the Mustard Seeds

Recently the Lord told me, “You’re not waiting on a new Word… you’re waiting on a mustard seed to grow”. There was an accompanying impression that some of us are already holding in dormant form the catalysts for shifting terrain. Where there’s an empty space of expectancy it may not be a need for something new but a need for a new faithfulness in the fruition of what we have waited on but not yet seen. 

I began to look at the contexts of mustard seeds in Jesus’s teachings. In Matthew 13:31-33 Jesus says, “ He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.” He told them still another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough.”

What struck me is that both of these examples (yeast and seeds) involve something very small being held in the right conditions for an extended time and becoming something large and dynamic with a visible effect. Instead of there being a specific length of time for activation of a seed or yeast, it all depends on the conditions that they are in. In the same way, some have been waiting for what they thought was a chronos time (specific place on the timeline) when in fact they’ve been waiting for the alignment of conditions needed for a kairos (God-appointed “it’s ready” time). 

I remembered the strengthening program I went through after having my children to bring my abdominal muscles back together. It was the most counter-intuitive experience because it used only ten minutes per day and was usually activating and holding small but precise ab muscles for several minutes at a time. The time seemed too little. The “exercises”- compared to crunches or weight lifting- seemed more like breathing exercises than a work out. But because of the little bit of HOLDING in the presence of resistance that was done over weeks and weeks, that small thing built more strength and healing in me than anything else I tried. 

Faith- like a mustard seed- is also something that must be held over time. On several occasions Jesus speaks the convicting words “oh you of little faith”. He also tells his disciples when they ask Him why they were unable to deliver a boy of a demon that it was “because you have so little faith”. That phrase “little faith” is a compound of two words. The part that means “little” comes from “oligos” which does mean small in amount but also can be used to mean “brief, short time, little while”. I find it even more amazing that in the verse immediately after telling them this in Matthew 17:20 He says “Truly I tell you, 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.” Perhaps within the mystery of faith there are times in which we have faith as big as a mustard seed, but we just need to hold our faith a little LONGER. 

What does it look like to hold our faith in such a way that our mustard seed can germinate? Earlier in that same chapter (Matthew 13) Jesus talks about what conditions we need to “hold” our seeds in. In the parable of the sower, Jesus lists several things that get in the way of the fruits of the Kingdom of God going from seed (Word) form to experiential form.

The first is Satan “takes away” the word (Matthew 13:19). The enemy is not powerful enough to nullify the promises of God. In fact, that word that is translated “take away” is the Greek word airó which can mean “raise the mind, equivalent to excite, affect strongly (with a sense of fear, hope, joy, grief, etc.)”  or “to hold the mind in suspense between doubt and hope”, “to take out of the way”, “to draw up: a fish, anchors from the bottom of the sea”. This is better translated as a scene not unlike the Garden of Eden where the enemy stirs up our emotions and keeps us flip-flopping between belief and faith in double-mindedness. This would be like changing our mind constantly as to whether or not something was a good seed. 

We treat things we expect to grow very differently than those we don’t. In this battle of the mind, we quickly pick our seed back out of the growing conditions of belief (like pulling a fish out of water) and chalk the lack of growth up to the seed’s impotence. A seed continually scattered and picked up and resown and regathered won’t grow (even though we’ve “tried many times”). That seed, however, still holds all the potential it did in its creation, but it shows none of the manifestation of its sown form because we haven’t stayed convinced enough of its potential long enough to keep it planted as we endure the waves of emotions, doubt, or provoking of the enemy. This tactic is used by the enemy in the time between the receiving of the Word and being able to SEE it growing. The time of spiritually staring at the dirt trying not to dig it up and see if our seed is doing anything. 

The second thing that keeps us from holding our seed in conditions conducive to growth is rocky places (Matthew 13:20-21). “But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away.” (Verse 21). Trouble or adverse conditions are not actually a threat to what God has planted in us or planned to do with us… unless we don’t bother to break up the rocks. We live in a part of Texas where the soil is so rocky that planting anything to a sufficient depth requires special tools. One time my son was eating melon in the backyard and “accidentally” started a melon garden. Because the seeds were not purposefully planted and the soil was rocky, the garden sprung up in abundance… for about a week or two before dying off. It takes effort to get a seed to depth and nurture it. Hear me, this “effort” isn’t a works-based effort but an effort like the kind of holding tight. The room available for your growth is determined by the amount of soil you’re willing to bust rocks in. In Jeremiah 23:29, God tells us, “Is not my word like fire,” declares the LORD, “and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?”. How do we break up rocks? We remind ourselves of God’s Word. We don’t fortify our daily decisions with assessment of facts or measures of progress but rather with words of God’s truth and testimony. By doing so we clear room for roots for what God has told us to have faith for. 

Lastly, verse 19 of Matthew 13 tells us that “worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word”. This word for choke means "choked because joined with." In other words, when we join our beliefs about God and His promises based on our disappointing past experiences or logic of the world, both can’t grow. I recently planted beautiful plants in pots by our front door. After a week or so, weed seeds must have blown into the pots because these beautiful-looking plants sprung up next to them overnight. Because they appeared to be beautiful, I left them. Within another week they had sucked all the nutrients and water from the soil and both were wilted. Sometimes our “weeds” look attractive because they come in the form of lies about what we must do to get the best outcome for ourselves (self preservation) and how to seek our own kingdom (self promotion). But no weed can stay and not take the same nutrients (faith, hope, belief) that our mustard seed needs. 

Many weeds also grow much faster than other plants. Sometimes the first thing to “grow” we believe is the result of our seed. Maybe we prayed for something once, nothing seemed to happen, and we believed it to be God’s answer. Sometimes we have to recognize and remove the weeds and then wait a little longer to see what God really intended to grow.

When our seeds are choked, Strong’s defines it as it “leaves them inoperative (stalled, spiritually suffocated)”. The beauty, however, is that stalled isn’t destroyed. A seed is a seed, even when dormant. I was researching mustard seeds and found a beautiful picture. Garvillo Gardening magazine said “To break seed dormancy, you can scarify the seeds by gently rubbing them with sandpaper or soaking them in warm water for a few hours before sowing.”

How do we reactivate dormant seeds in our life? We ask God to shape and scrape what we are believing. Then we soak in His Word. We maintain the conditions of our heart’s soil. We don’t doubt our seed, we break up lies with His truth, and we don’t allow what isn’t God’s truth to grow. Then we wait to see what grows. 

Ask God:

What area are You calling me to hold faith longer in?

What expectations do You need to “weed out” of my faith?

What lies do You need to break up in the soil of my heart?

Hebrews 11:1, 3 “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see… By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.”