Ep 5: Hailstones and Mustard Seeds

Speaker1: Well good morning. I'm Daniel Dopp and this is for your Sunday morning drive. The short podcast designed to help put us in a Colossians three two mindset and focus our minds for worship on those hectic Sunday mornings. And I wanted to share with you some exciting news for your Sunday morning drive is now in partnership with the Ministry League Network of podcasts. And if you aren't familiar with the Ministry League, they offer some great resources to help build up and equip the church. So please check them out at Ministry league.com or download their app. They are a fantastic place to find worship and study materials for both your congregation and your family. There's some wonderful resources there. I've been checking them out all week and I encourage you to do the same. And I'm truly honored to be part of such a great work and encourage you to check out the other fantastic podcasts on the Ministry League Network. It is my prayer, as always, that you're having a great morning. So let's get into it. This is episode five, hailstones and mustard seeds. Let's go to church.

Speaker2: Are we there yet?

Speaker1: Have you ever been through a storm? The kind that really scares you? The kind that makes you run to the basement? Well, recently there have been some pretty devastating storms that have rolled through our neck of the woods. In fact, our property was grazed recently by an EF2 tornado. All is well, and other than some trees that fell uncomfortably close to the house, no harm done. God is so good. But hearing and seeing this storm come in. You know the winds and the rain and the lightning and the thunder. They weren't the only alarming and awe inspiring aspects of the weather. There was also hail. Thankfully, the hail in this storm wasn't of much significance. But I know I've seen pictures and I'm sure you have to of stuff that's like the size of baseballs, if not bigger. Well, have you ever thought about how hail is formed. I'm no weather nerd. I mean meteorologist, but from what I've been told, the process of hail forming involves water droplets getting caught in the updraft of a storm, and then they freeze at high altitude. The stronger and more violent the storm, the larger and more impressive the hail. And sometimes these pieces of hail will move up and down in the atmosphere, and they'll become bigger and bigger. And they grow by layers, layer upon layer of ice, until eventually they all fall down and come crashing back to earth.

Speaker1: Our faith is very similar to this process. Strong faith is formed from strong storms, the repeated ups and downs in our lives, getting knocked down, stumbling and getting back up again, each time with more endurance to face the challenges ahead of us. James chapter one verse two says, consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. In the same vein, even a little faith, a faith that starts out small can grow eventually into something incredible built by the trials of life. Matthew 1720. And he said to them, because of the littleness of your faith, for truly I say to 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 to you. A strong faith is a process. Don't get discouraged. Keep on building it and don't stop. I'm Daniel Dopp and these have been some thoughts for your Sunday morning drive. Let's worship our God. Our discussion question for today is what are some of the ups and downs that have built your faith, and how can you help someone going through the same?