He replied, “Because you have so little 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

 
Ever have a day where a song plays in your mind and you can’t seem to shake it?  No, I don’t mean some annoying song that someone mentions and it drives you nuts – something more like a soundtrack for what you’re feeling, thinking or experiencing.

 
I always get a little nervous when I ask questions like this – mainly because I’m afraid that I might be the only person this happens to and you’ll not only think I’m weird, but you’ll have evidence from my own confession.  But seeing how it’s too late for me to deny it, I might as well continue down this track.

 
All day today I have had a song from the musical Miss Saigon running through my head: The Movie in My Mind (Click the title to hear the song).  Never heard of it?  Well let me explain.  Miss Saigon tells the story of Kim, a young orphaned Vietnamese girl who turns to prostitution to survive.  The musical begins with her being “shown the ropes by some of the veterans of her group, including Mimi Van Tran – the woman who wins the title of “Miss Saigon” and begins the song.  Both women talk about how they are coping with the challenges they are currently experiencing because of the dream they hold that one of these men will not merely use them but actually come to love them and give them the better life they desire.    For Kim, she is trying to come to grips with where her life has brought her.  For Mimi, she is trying to get lost in the dream in order to forget her reality.  The song is melodic yet haunting, but through it all it reveals to us an interesting irony and an important truth.

 
You could argue that the song in nothing more than a mask for the hopelessness they actually feel.  But what we learn over time is that when life brings us to moments of total despair – those places where we have absolutely nothing but hope, we can, in fact, cling fast to the hope that God has given us out of His boundless love for us.  Life simply cannot create a situation that leaves us lower than God’s outstretched arms can reach.  If we find ourselves hiding in the bushes with Adam and Eve, cowering in the cave with David or Elijah, in the lion’s den with Daniel, in the belly of a fish with Jonah, shipwrecked and adrift in the open sea with Paul, or even lying in the grave next to Lazarus, there is no place, no situation, no circumstance that we face in life in which God does not have control.  Our faith in Him, the promises He has made to us, and the Holy Spirit living in our hearts give us everything we need to not only maintain our hope, but to do so with a boldness, a confidence, and an expectation that God will keep His word and deliver us according to His will for our lives.  So it’s not the movie in our mind but the Spirit in our heart.

 
Through Him we can live with an unparalleled hope, no matter what the world may say or what the situation might show.