Hear the word that the Lord speaks to you, O house of Israel.  Thus says the Lord: Do not learn the way of the nations, or be dismayed at the signs of the heavens; for the nations are dismayed at them.  For the customs of the peoples are false: a tree from the forest is cut down, and worked with an ax by the hands of an artisan; people deck it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so that it cannot move.  Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field, and they cannot speak; they have to be carried, for they cannot walk.  Do not be afraid of them, for they cannot do evil, nor is it in them to do good.  There is none like you, O Lord; you are great, and your name is great in might.  Who would not fear you, O King of the nations?  For that is your due; among all the wise ones of the nations and in all their kingdoms there is no one like you.  They are both stupid and foolish; the instruction given by idols is no better than wood!  Beaten silver is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz.  They are the work of the artisan and of the hands of the goldsmith; their clothing is blue and purple; they are all the product of skilled workers.  But the Lord is the true God; he is the living God and the everlasting King.  At his wrath the earth quakes, and the nations cannot endure his indignation.  Thus shall you say to them: The gods who did not make the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth and from under the heavens.

-worked with an ax by the hands of an artisan

-people deck it with silver and gold

-their idols cannot speak

-do not be afraid of them, for they cannot do evil, nor is it in them to do good

-the instruction given by idols is no better than wood

-they are the work of the artisan, and of the hands of the goldsmith

-they are all the product of skilled workers

-but the Lord is the true God; he is the living God

How do we know we have a prayer life?  Do we judge it by the kind of person it helps us become?  How, then, do we explain our continual failings?  How, then, are even the most saintly people sometimes scoundrels?  If we are not to judge our prayer life based on such things, then how do we know we are not aimless in our endeavors?  How to chart a course through the waters?

Perhaps all these practices of our spiritual life are merely the product of our own hands, which we fashion ourselves and then treat as idols. Perhaps that portion of our spirituality which is authentic and true is so tiny as to be barely perceptible: “if your faith was as little as a mustard seed you could move mountains.”

“Strive to enter the narrow gate,” Jesus tells us.  “Strive” here in the Greek literally means to fight and struggle.  This tells me that there is a mustard seed in us not because we are simply striving in our spiritual life, but that we persevere and persist even amid all the idols that we have fashioned for ourselves.  That we drink the water of repentance continually once our idols are ground into dust and sprinkled into the water. (Exodus 32.20)  That we pray continually: “O God, make the gods in us who did not make the heavens and the earth to perish.” (v 11)  This is the “discipline of the Lord” which is so necessary for our true growth into children of the Most High (cf. Hebrews 12.5-8).  If we are not disciplined by God, “that discipline in which all children share, then we are illegitimate and not his children” (Heb 12.8)

The mystery of this activity occurring in us, and our assent to it, is most assuredly, true faith.