a masterlocked faith

I tell you the truth, 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."
-Matthew 17:20

"I believe Lord, help thou my unbelief!"
-Mark 9:24

Lately I've been dealing with fleas in my apartment. I've prayed that they would leave and stop leaving their bite marks all over my body. I can't say I've "cried out" to the Lord over this, and I don't feel it's a subject I'd do that with. When I think of that kind of prayer, I think of a cry for a friend's salvation or a parent's job or that my future marriage would glorify God. But maybe this is my problem. Do I put faith under certain labels like I do with sin (as much as I try to fight against it)?

This problem started a little over a week ago resulting in speckled legs. As I write this, my apartment has two flea bombs going off. Is it a lack of faith that prompted me to buy those $3.49 cans? Was I not patient enough? Or was the feeling of "I need to do something" justified when I found new bites this morning and saw a flea on my ankle this afternoon?

I guess I wonder all of this for a greater reason: if this is a faith issue, and it's just flea-sized, what will happen when the issue weighs more than one nano-ith of a gram?

The saying "Trust God but lock your doors" — has always boggled my mind. What would Abraham, Job and David say to such a phrase? How about Lewis, Tozer or Spurgeon?

I know God does not give us a blind faith, but isn't that often our excuse for science? "Well God made the brains that patented the idea for a lock." But what if God wants us to trust Him and trust in Him so much that we can pray our fleas away? That we can believe our health can be directed solely by His hands and not those of a doctor (see James 5).

I struggle so much with this because how far do you take it ... then we wont be wearing seat belts and we'll be driving through red lights, stuck behind bars giving FAITH a bad rap.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen, Hebrews 11 says.

Is God really calling me to a faith this practical? Where the eternal and unseen meet the mundane day-to-day activities. Somehow I have to believe he is. But I don't quite understand what that means.

What size is my faith bundle? It's certainly not as small as a mustard seed, and not even as minuscule as a flea egg. How do I make it grow in size? What's the water and sun and fertilizer necessary to cultivate a garden of faith? And when fully grown, what oh what does that fruit look like? And is there a fence around such a garden, or simply an invisible wall of buff angels watching guard?

I feel like a little girl with a yellow plastic shovel standing on an acre of un-tilled dirt, being asked to plant a garden. It seems impossible.

But faith spurs in us the possibility, the hope, the desire to accomplish the impossible. As much as I don't want to get my knees all dirty using a tool that seems inutile (that's a Spanish word I just made English) — I also want to be in this exact spot, knowing that there is a Greater Force working through me, waiting to be glorified if I simply obey.

I think I lock my door out of obedience to my culture, not my God.