The year I lived in Oxford, I often rode my bike past two different memorials. Both were built to commemorate three Protestant Christians who were burned at the stake: Thomas Cranmer, Hugh Latimer, and Nicholas Ridley.
The first memorial is 70 feet tall and stands in a prominent place in town on St. Giles Street. The structure is ornate in design and many people pause beside it, looking up at the statues of the great and brave men that sit on top. The other memorial sits about a tenth of a mile away on Broad Street. It’s hardly a memorial compared to its counterpart, just a few bricks set in the pavement in the form of a cross. This memorial marks the actual spot where Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer were burned at the stake.
During my year in Oxford, my faith was weak. It didn’t look much like that 70-foot statue on St. Giles Street. I had doubts and uncertainties about what I believed. I was wrestling with tough questions. My faith looked much more like the memorial on Broad Street—a low-to-the-ground, quiet faith.
This is how the faith journey often works. We may have seasons of great, strong faith when we shout the promises of God from the rooftops and everyone who passes by stops to look. And then there are seasons where faith does not come naturally—when we are fighting and struggling to believe. In those seasons, we’re not evangelizing on street corners. It may seem that all we can do is kneel at the cross on the ground, run our hands along the bricks, and remember its shape.
No matter what your faith looks like today—a 70-foot statue or a humble collection of bricks—know this: God did not ask us to have faith the size of a mountain. Instead, he assured us that our faith, even if it is the size of a mustard seed, could move that mountain.
Andrea Lucado is a freelance writer based in Austin, Texas. She is the author of English Lessons: The Crooked Path of Growing Toward Faith. Follow her at AndreaLucado.com, on Instagram, or Twitter.
