FAITH: noun
- A strong or unshakeable belief in something or someone.
I woke up this morning thinking about faith. Faith is something I have a lot of, as you probably all know by now, or should do. I think it's one of the most basic of our natural instincts, and something which we all have, should we admit it or not. We learn it at our mother's knees. We can't help it. We are born as helpless creatures with no ability to look after ourselves whatsoever. All we can do at that point . . . is to cry and to sleep. We can't even turn ourselves over. We can't pick anything up, or speak intelligent words . . . just cry. We learn rather quickly though that crying gets us what we need. If we are hungry . . . we cry, and somebody comes to feed us. If we need our nappies changed . . . we cry, and somebody comes to change it. And so it goes . . . we continue on, having faith that when we cry, whatever it is that we need . . .that need will be met.
As we grow and develop in life, so grows and develops our faith. First in our mother, father, family . . . and then, as our world stretches, our faith stretches too. We move outside our doors and our faith goes with us. It takes faith just to stick our heads out the door and believe that the minute that we do so, nothing bad will happen to us. I expect it is the same type of faith that encourages a baby bird to jump out of the nest and begin to soar.. We, too, leave our nests . . . born upon the wings of every day faith.
Our faith grows and moves as we learn to exercise it in a mulititude of ways. Some of them very basic . . . and other's requiring much, much more effort . . . and when I speak of that . . . I am speaking of the faith that it takes to believe in a higher power. The faith that it takes to believe and rest upon something which is unseen. The faith that it takes to believe that we came from a special place . . . that we are here for a Divine purpose . . . and that we have an eternal destiny, which is far greater than that which we can possibly comprehend with our finite minds . . . a place reserved for kings and queens in an infinite realm.
I don't know where such faith comes from. I think about it alot. Why is it that I have such a deep faith myself, and where did it come from?? I only know that I have always had this seed, this special place in my heart . . . where I know and believe that God is there, and that He is very real . . . and that He loves me.
I don't really need to see his face . . . for I have seen the Saviour . . . and the Saviour has promised us that if we see Him, then we see God the Father, because they are one in likeness and in purpose. I may not have gazed upon the Saviour's face . . . but I have seen His heart, read of His deeds, and read His words of wisdom . . . and I believe them. And in the believing . . . I have seen His face. I have brushed my fingers across the nail marks in His hands, and wept for the pain and the part which I have played in putting them there . . . and too . . . my heart has rejoiced at the wondrous and loving gift He gave us in all that He suffered . . . that precious gift of eternal life and a Divine Destiny.
Faith is not simply a holy thing which we keep reserved for special days. It is something we need to use and exercise every day, our hearts and hope to raise. It is something which we add to the joy and pain and strife, stirring it into the mixture of the common stuff of life.
It is the secret yeast, which causes the bread of life to rise, the power of God at work in each of us. Faith glorifies homely tasks and daily duty. It helps to make dull lives glow. It is the leaven which makes us much, much more than mere lumps of human dough. Like it as not . . . in a lifeboat . . . everybody prays . . . and that my friends . . . is faith.
“God expects you to have enough faith and determination and enough trust in Him to keep moving, keep living, keep rejoicing. In fact, He expects you not simply to face the future (that sounds pretty grim and stoic); He expects you to embrace and shape the future--to love it and rejoice in it and delight in your opportunities. God is anxiously waiting for the chance to answer your prayers and fulfill your dreams, just as He always has. But He can't if you don't pray, and He can't if you don't dream. In short, He can't if you don't believe.” ― Jeffrey R. Holland
Cooking in The English Kitchen today . . . Thai Peanut Noodles! Scrummo!!
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