What you say matters. You can speak to the mountain and it will move! Jesus tells his disciples this in Matthew 17:
And when they came to the crowd, a man came up to him and, kneeling before him, said, "Lord, have mercy on my son, for he has seizures and he suffers terribly. For often he falls into the fire, and often into the water. And I brought him to your disciples, and they could not heal him."
Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, "Why could we not cast it out?" He said to them, "Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you."
Matthew 17:14-16, 19-20
I have to believe this literal. If this is symbolic and not literal, is it required to also pair it with the idea that Jesus didn’t really mean what He said?
Note that Jesus did not say what you think will move mountains. It is what you say.
The first condition to Matthew 17:20 is to speak, the second condition is your faith. Jesus is giving the direction that you have more power and authority than you realize.
Have you ever made a verbal spiritual declaration? How about this one:
... because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Romans 10:9
You must speak! And the only other condition is that you must believe.
There are strong parallels from Romans 10:9 to Matthew 17:20; both require speech and both require faith and belief.
Let’s loop back to Matthew 17:20; the verse is in the context of casting out a demon. If one can cast out demons with speech and faith, what else can our speech and faith do?
Try commanding a healing in Jesus name. It’s as simple as saying:
Be healed in Jesus' name
Have some faith and see what mountains are moved in Jesus’ name.