Matthew 17:20-21 quotes Jesus as saying, “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.” Today I would like to talk about a sort of converse to this statement: sometimes we need to have faith in small things.

I would like to illustrate this with the true story of Swedish missionaries David and Svea Flood and their daughter Aggie Hurst. I read the story in our Bible study class out of the book Grace Is Greater by Kyle Idleman, but you can read an extended version by Googling Aggie Hurst.

David and Svea went as missionaries to the N’dolera area of the Belgian Congo. The local chief wouldn’t let them have contact with any of the local people except for a boy who sold them food. Svea converted him, and he was to be the only convert they had in the years they were there.

In what should have been a joyous time, Svea gave birth to a baby girl, but unfortunately died a few days after giving birth. David was shattered, and depressed over her death and his lack of success, he went back to Sweden. He gave the baby to the care of an American missionary couple, who adopted her, named her Aggie, and raised her in the United States.

As an adult Aggie traveled to Sweden and made contact with her natural father. He had lived a less than happy life suffering from alcoholism, and was very ill. He apologized for giving her up explaining that he was depressed over Svea’s death and his failure as a missionary; he stressed that there had only been one convert. Aggie, though, had a surprise for him; she knew what had happened to that one convert. In a few years his witness had led to the conversion of almost everyone in the N’dolera region. Later, as an adult he had become the leader of a Christian association in the Congo with over 100,000 members. With the aid of Aggie’s love and message, David returned to his faith.

I love this story. I love the way this very small success, the conversion of a little boy, led to something greater. The reason I love this story is that a small thing was very important to my own Christian journey. In going through some family stuff I found an old postcard with a picture of the damage from a flood. There were only a few lines of childish writing on the back, and reading further I saw that the writer was my father, who was probably about eight years old at the time. It was addressed to his father, who had essentially abandoned his family. I found the card close to seventy years after it was written and years after my father and grandfather had died. I will save the full story for another time, but this little card, written by a little boy, together with my knowledge of what had happened in the intervening years, convinced me that even though I was a Christian, I had become separated from God. I needed to commit to fully serving Him and His Church.

Please remember that God sometimes speaks to us through small things and that often that message is that He loves YOU and me unconditionally.

Jim