When we have problems in life – sometimes they loom so large, that they make God appear to be small – at least from where we’re standing. Surely God won’t help me?!

This week on the program we’re looking at our lives when we find ourselves under siege, you know, every way we turn we feel as though we’re cut off from really living life to the full. We’re surviving … just; we want to blame everyone else instead of actually doing something about whatever it is that’s causing us grief. And God, well God, He’ll help other people but, no not me, my problem is so big, it’s so real, it’s so impossible, no, no, God wouldn’t do anything about it. Well look I know that God in theory could do something about it I mean after all he is God, but in practice… no, on balance I really don’t think God’s going to show up.

Haven’t we all been down that road? Desperation when our life is under siege, when we’re dealing with one problem and maybe, maybe problems in life on multiple fronts. Maybe work’s not going well at the same time as this isn’t going well at the same time as we’re having money problems and kid problems and … And in that desperation those problems loom so large, they look like they’re bigger than God. In our head we know it’s not the case but in our hearts, where we believe, that’s where we perceive the problems to be bigger than God. It maybe an uncomfortable fact but in those times we can put more faith in the problem than we do in God. It’s true isn’t it?

Over the last couple of days on the program we’re been looking at a story from the Old Testament, 2 Kings, chapter 6 and 7. It’s about the siege of a city called Samaria just north of Jerusalem. And what happens in this siege is that the Aramite army comes and lays siege around the city and the siege is all about, well the Aramite army can’t break the defences of the city so they lay siege. They cut off the water, they cut off the food, they starve people out. And so food is so scarce it’s worth a fortune, women are killing their children and cannibalising them, the King has completely lost hope, everyone’s seen that the King has lost hope, the place is an absolute mess.

And Elisha is God’s man on the ground, he’s a prophet, he speaks for God and when the King comes and says, “I accuse God of this, this is God’s fault you know, God did this to me.” How often have we heard that? We’ve got to find someone to blame, Gods as good as any, he’s a big target, let's blame God.

When the King comes to Elisha and says that, this is what Elisha says, “Hear the word of God today, tomorrow about this time in just twenty four hours a measure of choice meal will be sold for just a shekel and two measures of barley for a shekel at the gate of Samaria. And the Captain who was with the King said to the prophet, “Come on, even if the Lord made windows in the sky could such a thing happen?” But Elisha said to him, “You know something, you’re going to see it with your own eyes but you will not eat from it.”

So here’s God’s man on the ground, this siege has been going on we don’t know how long but in the opening of that story in chapter 6 verse 24 of 2 Kings, we know that food was selling for an outrageous amount of money. We know that women were killing their children to eat them, we know that there was a desperate, desperate famine going on, and in the middle of all of that, when all is lost, God comes along and speaks into that situation through Elisha and says “in twenty four hours there’s going to be abundant food.”

Now that was completely and utterly impossible you understand. And in my experience when we feel under siege and we feel God coming along saying to us saying, “I’m going to deliver you from this siege,” His word always seems impossible. Because we’re people, we’re human, we’re focused on the problem, we’re focused on the need, we’re focused on the siege and we lose sight of the enormity of God’s love and grace and power. Isn’t that what we do?

When Jacqui and I were on our honeymoon a few years ago, we flew on a small plane over the Fiordlands on the South Island of New Zealand, beautiful, beautiful country but when we got to the airport they said, “Look you know, it’s going to be windy, a bit bumpy, do you still want to come?” And of course being the fool that I am I said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course we’ll still go.” And so we got on this plane and about 100 feet off the ground it was so bumpy I thought, ‘what have we done’? And when we got up high I tell you what those mountains, those alps they looked so big and God looked so small.

The mountains that we were flying around or near were called the Remarkables and they’re not called that for no reason, they’re massive, they’re big rocky snow covered mountains. And we flew through such turbulence in this tiny little plane, when we were coming in to land it’s like you see in the movies sometimes from the cockpit of a plane in the old movies all you could see top, bottom, left and right out of the window of the plane was mountain. You couldn’t see sky, you couldn’t see ground, you could just see mountains so you lost your distance perspective, and I was sure we were going to crash into that mountain before we turned left to land.

I was absolutely certain, and in that moment, for me God somehow shrunk and became a whole bunch smaller than those mountains. I mean really did God lose His power to keep me safe right then? Did He lose His will to keep me safe? Of course He didn’t, it just felt like He did and that’s life, it’s hard in that siege, everything looks so impossible.

So we have a few choices at that point, we can sit there and grumble and complain like the King did and blame God and stay there and starve to death, in many respects you know that’s the easy option. We can try the self help program but so often we get involved in circumstances in life that we just can’t change by ourselves. Or we can take a mighty step forward to trust in God.

“But Berni, how do I trust in God when I’m scared, when the circumstances look too big?’’ That is a good question, and for me this is what happens. Sometimes when the circumstances look bigger than God I just believe with as much faith as I can, my faith isn’t perfect, in fact it’s not about how big my faith is it’s about how big my God is. Jesus said you only need a mustard seed of faith that was the smallest seed that those people knew of at the time, and that little mustard seed of faith can move mountains; even the Remarkables let me say.

And the second thing that I do, even though my faith isn’t complete and my faith isn’t perfect, is I walk out of my siege, even when I’m scared even when I’m afraid, I just take a step forward anyway. And what I’ve found is that when I do that, and God always shows up it grows my faith for next time, and next time I can believe in God a little bit more.

God isn’t looking for perfect faith; God is just looking for a heart that says, “Lord I believe you enough to take that first step in the direction you are telling me.” Faith someone once said is the opiate of the masses, not for me, for me following God in faith takes a lot of courage and some days we do it afraid and some days we do it scared but we do it anyway. What’s the alternative, stay there and die? Doesn’t matter how big the mountains are, doesn’t matter how big the siege is, doesn’t matter how big the problem is and how small our plane is, God doesn’t shrink when we’re facing a siege.

God doesn’t lose interest, God doesn’t get bored, God doesn’t wander off somewhere. Jesus said all you need is faith the size of a mustard seed and you can move mountains.