From Little to Much Faith

One of our kids' favorite movies is Finding Nemo and it just so happens that I had to ban the movie for a while.  The children were acting out the movie word for word *LOL*.  No matter, my son continues to perform parts from the movie and I laugh at him from mocking the movie.

For those who do not know, Finding Nemo is a movie about a clown fish named Marlon and his son Nemo.  Before Nemo was born, Marlon and Nemo's mother, Coral (another clown fish) were out on the reef talking about all their new babies that will be born and what they will name them.  Coral wanted some to be called Nemo.  Marlon wanted most to be named Marlon, Jr.  Long story short, a Barracuda shows up, eats Coral and eats all the eggs but one.  Marlon names him Nemo. 

Because of that traumatic event, Marlon is scared to even let Nemo sneeze by himself for fear of something happening to him.  In addition, Marlon has now become fearful of a lot and reserves himself to being conservative and out of danger.  Being a stubborn kid, Nemo defies his father and goes out into open water to touch the "butt" (the boat - the other fish called it the butt).  Nemo gets captured by a diver and is wisked away which starts the adventure to find him.

*phew*, I had to go through all this to lead to where I'm going today.  Picking up a from where I left off yesterday, today I want to talk about faith.  "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." (Hebrews 11:1).  Marlon, definitely lacked faith.  He didn't trust in anything that he could not see or predict.  As with us, It is so easy to hear about faith from the pulpit and how we need to have it, however it is difficult to use it if we do not have it.  In order to build your faith, you have to exercise it.  Faith without works is dead (see James 2:20).

In one scene of the movie, Marlon and Dory (fish played by Ellen DeGeneres) become trapped in a whale.  Marlon blames Dory for this mishap and believes the whale wants to eat them, but in fact the whale is helping them on their journey.  In that scene, the whale does his whale talk and Dory (who speaks whale - you have to see the movie) says its time to go.  The water starts to drain from the whale's mouth and the only way to go is to the back of the whale's throat.  Marlon asked how does she know something bad isn't going to happen and Dory said she doesn't and lets go of the whale's tongue to fall to the back of the throat.  Finally, Marlon lets go and they fall down and are blown out the whale's blow hole close to their destination.

Let's look at this and how it compares to us.  Many of us in life are afraid of the unknown because we like to be in control (*raising hand* - this was me).  In order to exercise faith you have to be willing to go into some things with the expectancy that God has it in control and will take care of you.  Like Dory said, she didn't know that anything bad was going to happen, but she was willing to step out on faith to find out if something good was going to happen.

In Matthew 6:30 Jesus says, "If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?".  Don't let fear hamper a gift that God has given to us all.  The more you know, the more you grow.  As with anything else in life you have to take things in baby steps and one day you'll look back and say, "Wow, look how far I've come".

Be easy family and have a Happy Hump Day!

Regards,

Antoine E. Hall

Blog:   http://toinebo.blogger.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/AntoineHall

"It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect." - 2 Samuel 22:33