Matthew 17:20-21 (NIV) 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.”

It is difficult to be at rest when you think you should have more faith than you actually do. After all, if all my problems would go away if I just had more faith, then I really do not have time to rest: I must devote all my time and energy to perfecting this thing called faith. I must believe harder, the difficulties in my life an indicator that, from Jesus’ perspective, whatever faith I possess is clearly not enough.

But if I am going to sacrifice my sense of well-being for the sake of faith, it is important to know what faith actually is. For starters, it is not achieved by human effort. I cannot will my way into having more faith than I actually do. Faith simply does not work that way. So my lack of mountain-moving may rightly indicate an opportunity for me to grow in faith, but striving my way into it will never work.

What then will? Jesus gives us a clue when he says to his disciples (and by extension to us) “Apart from me you can do nothing.” On the surface, this would seem to contradict the whole idea all we need is faith to do anything. But Jesus is actually giving us insight into what faith actually looks like as it is walked out in the Christian life: partnership. When we remain in Jesus, we become aware what he is doing, and participate with him. We find ourselves moving the mountains he is moving and in fact desires to move with us.

When Jesus says “have faith,” he is not encouraging us to try harder: he is inviting us to go deeper. He is inviting us into a life where we, aware of our own insufficiency, come to know and partner with his unlimited provision for every situation we face. To me, there is no greater place of rest.