So, we learned yesterday that, if we would have Faith, we must both believe and trust.  And we’ve seen this week that our faith is greater when we believe in what is most real and we trust in what is most trustworthy.  If we believe and trust in Bigfoot— unreal and untrustworthy—we don’t possess the virtue of Faith, but rather foolishness.  If we have faith in our parents— real but mortal and trustworthy but fallible—we have faith…but not the kind that amounts to genuine virtue.  And if we believe and trust in the eternally real and perfectly trustworthy God, then we have true Faith. 

Do you see something interesting there?  The quality of our Faith is less about our belief and trust, and more about what or whom we believe and trust.

Think about your parents again – at this stage in your life, you trust them for pretty much everything.  If you want to know something, you trust them to tell you the truth; if you’re sick, you trust them to care for you; if you’re not sure where to go, you trust them to point you in the right direction; you trust them to provide you with all of your basic needs, like a home, and food, and clothing.

But your ability to trust them—that is, your faith in them—only really extends to the limits of their abilities.  You can trust your mom and dad to care for you when you’re sick…but not to heal you – they don’t have that power.  If you were blind, you could trust your parents to guide you…but not to make you see.  You could trust your parents to comfort you in your sadness…but not to make you happy – despite what we parents may sometimes think, we don’t have that power.  You can trust your parents to provide you with shelter during a storm…but not to stop the storm.

There’s an old saying, that it’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.  We often think that a similar rule applies to faith, that the key to true faith is to believe really hard, to trust really big. 

But Jesus once told his disciples that nothing would be impossible for them if they just had faith the size of a tiny mustard seed.  It wasn’t the size of the faith in them; it was the size of what they placed their faith in—the infinite and eternal God of the universe—that made the difference.  And so, when it comes to the quality of our faith—and yes, we all have faith in someone or something—the question is really quite simple: In whom or what do you believe?