Nothing impossible?

Matthew 17 : 14 - 20

...if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed......

These words of Jesus have always been difficult for me to understand. Surely they are not to be understood simplistically. For, somehow, I have not seen many mountains being moved even by people of faith, in response to their command. Many prayers are answered when believers pray in faith. But In fact, as many prayers are not answered in the way that we would desire. How do we reconcile all this?

Recently, I heard an interesting way of looking at this. It helped me make more appreciative of this passage, which at first sight seems unrealistic. The preacher said that there are two kinds of faith: "expectant faith" and "submissive faith". The first is the kind of faith we exercise when we 'storm the heavens' seeking what we need from God, trusting in his power to bring it to pass. This is an excellent way to pray - and Jesus commends it here. His disciples had somehow not exercised this faith in their attempts to heal the epileptic.

On the other hand, in other passages of Scripture, and also through our own life experiences, we know that there is another way to pray - that is, with submissive faith. This is when we realize that despite God's power to do all things, we may not really understand his will in each situation. At some point, after storming the heavens and being told "No" or "Wait" we pray with submissive faith, trusting that God does know best (however humanly inexplicable it seems to us). We are willing to 'live the questions', trusting Him, even when the way is dark.

In fact, the Lord's prayer advocates both types of faith - the submissive faith of "Thy will be done" and the expectant faith "Give us this day our daily bread". With both types of faith in place (though they may not be so clear cut in each situation) actually nothing is impossible because in all things, God's glory is manifested.