Minister's Montly Letter

Unity Church of Christianity Appleton, Wisconsin

January 2008

Moving Mountains or Molehills?

"For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you." Matthew 17:20

Are you moving mountains or just rearranging the molehills in your life? Mountains are big, really big. They delineate the horizon. They can help you navigate—if you're in Denver, you always know that "west" is where the mountains rise up to the sky. Mountains are massive and heavy and generally immovable, right?

Molehills, on the other hand, are annoying. If you've ever had voles or moles in your well-manicured, gently-irrigated, thrice-yearly fertilized front lawn, you know what I’m saying. Really, really annoying. Yet, in the grand scale of Mother Earth, molehills are…well, really, really nothing in comparison to mountains.

Jesus is quoted as saying that faith the size of a mustard seed is enough to pick up and move a mountain from hither to yon. Faith. The size of a mustard seed. Faith—that strong "belief in" something. A mustard seed—think teeny tiny. Just the littlest bit of faith is so powerful that it can move a mountain? Now that's something to ponder, and it's something to aim for, I suppose, should the need arise.

But more typically, the "mountains" in our lives are those long-accepted, seemingly intractable difficulties that we put up with, learn to live with, and consider immovable. We allow them to define our sense of direction, delineate the horizon of our lives, and sometimes even determine who we think we are.

Molehills, on the other hand, are those ongoing nagging little things that we obsess about—like those last ten pounds we just have to lose, the fact that our child got a "C" in art, or why it is that the cars in front of us are so slow.

In either case, mountains or molehills, we can apply faith to resolve our difficulties. Where do you want to put your faith, and how do you want to exercise it? If you have a big mountain going on in your life, put your faith to work at dissolving that mountain--rearrange your internal landscape; redefine your mental horizon. If you have an array of molehills, they too are susceptible to the exercise of faith. The amazing thing is, you can decide where and how to apply your spiritual power of faith! It's all up to you and Spirit! Mountains or molehills, let's meet them with faith in Spirit and watch what happens.

We can trust Spirit. We can! Trust Spirit!

April Kain-Breese, Spiritual Leader
minister@unityofappleton.org