It is December—the season of Saint Nicholas, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve. A time of togetherness and also a time of being alone, of looking back and of a gentle nostalgia when you are as old as I am. In my previous blog I wrote about Bible verses from my childhood that are resurfacing within me and that, now that I look at them with new eyes, turn out to contain great pearls. Today, one more—and then I promise I’ll stop for a while.
This time it is the word “kleingelovigen” (“you of little faith”) that stirs a great deal in me. Of course, this word no longer appears in modern translations, but it is how it is etched into my memory. And it is a jewel, because it touches precisely on what was originally written in Greek:[1] stond: ὀλιγόπιστοι, consisting of ὀλίγος, oligos small, little, and πίστις, pistis - faith, trust
Jesus of Nazareth uses this word whenever he notices fear and anxiety in his disciples.[2] A beautiful example is this passage from the Sermon on the Mount[3]I quote once again from the old translation, because these words still evoke in me the same sense of safety that I already felt as a child:
And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin. Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his splendor was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
In the stories in which Jesus says, “you of little faith,” there is never a reproach. Rather, it is a gentle invitation to make the movement from fear to trust. It is not about guilt, but about recognizing the trembling layer of the personality that panics when the wind rises or when the waves seem too high. In the language of The Flower, you could say that this is the surface sea, where everything moves quickly, where thoughts and emotions whip each other up, and where the body tenses reflexively. Little faith means that attention is still caught in that rippling surface of the sea.
In these stories, the same quiet gesture is made again and again. The fear of the disciples is not denied; nowhere is it said that it is unreasonable to be startled by a storm or by a sudden collapse of certainty. And at the same time, another dimension is pointed out that is already present, even before the fear: the deep sea of trust in which you can rest. In The Flower, this is called the space of the Heart—the still center that remains unperturbed, even when the petals of the personality flutter nervously.
When Jesus says “Why are you afraid, you of little faith?” you actually hear: "Do you feel that you do not have to live on the thin shell of your fear?” imply remember your own depth. Know that the petals can open inward, toward that calm core that you essentially are. There is nothing to defend there, nothing to prove. There, the perspective shifts by itself. The waves are still there, and yet you are no longer lost in them.
Thus, “little faith” becomes not a deficiency but a gateway. It is precisely in acknowledging and recognizing your own smallness that great trust becomes visible. Your flower does not open because fear disappears, but because you experience that there is more than fear. There is always your Heart, holding space—a space in which you are safe. A Heart that has depth, a depth that does not move with the storm. A Heart that is a gentle presence in which your personality may be restless without you being overcome by it. In that “knowing,” fear turns into trust—not as an act of willpower, but as a returning to that still center that has always been there and always will be.
[1] The Aramaic that Jesus spoke has not been preserved in a direct written form. The New Testament was written in Greek.
[2] Zie ook Mattheüs 8 vers 26; 14 vers 31, 16 vers 8 en Lucas 8 vers 12
[3] Mattheüs 6, vers 28-30