- Faith — real faith — is the indispensable tool in our personal tool set to use when Life asks us to go out on a limb.
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| WHAT?! … SORRY! I don’t KNOW any prayers! I’m AN ATHEIST! |
In order to convey what I feel I have to share about spirituality, I need to lay down some foundation stones, the “givens” I hold to be true about our place in the Universe and the meaning of our existence … and all that.
Hence, “Reality 101.”
The second of my foundation stones, is Faith.
Several years ago I had a dour, curmudgeonly co-worker (I may be a curmudgeon, but she raised it to an art form) who remarked to me in what I suspect was one of her few moments of genuine candor: “I wish I had your faith.”
I don’t remember the exact context of the conversation, but I suspect we were facing some kind of organizational change, and we did get through it. (This misguided soul did, in fact, go on to be a nuisance to her co-workers and the company until she retired four years later.)
It seems to me she probably wouldn’t have been such a curmudgeon if she had managed to find a little faith.
And vice versa.
Faith is a Verb
faith (Noun)
- Pure, untainted trust, confidence, or unquestioned reliance;
- Affiliation or devotion to a particular religion or belief;
- Loyalty or allegiance to some person or thing.
For my purposes here, I would ask that we pretty much ignore the kinds of definitions we normally think of attached to the word “faith,” such as the ones above, and start thinking of the concept of faith as a verb.
Faith, as I see it, is something we do.
Practically speaking, the word “faith” has almost exactly the opposite meaning as the word “doubt.” When we step into — or are forced into — tough situations, our ability to have faith in the outcome — to not doubt the outcome, to believe we will succeed or get through is what faith is really about. This isn’t the kind of faith that we have, it’s the the kind of faith that we do.
If you had been thinking that my working definition of Faith sounds a little like having confidence in ourselves, I’d agree it’s a pretty good comparison. The word “confidence” has a number of meanings, but specifically: the quality of certitude, a feeling of assurance, especially of self-assurance.
Confidence, I think, is something we acquire in the process of practicing faith.
But, as you’d expect, for me there is a higher dimension to faith than just feeling secure we can do something we set our minds to. For me, the practice of faith is, in a sense, an active affirmation, a belief in an underlying order and meaningfulness in our existence and experiences.
In practicing faith I am stepping into an unknown, and am consciously assuring myself that, despite what our cultural expectations and our news media might try to brainwash us into believing, that our universe was not created by a madman and that Life works.
How Far Does Faith Go?
As an adolescent, and loving to read, I was not intimidated by trying to get a grasp of Biblical verses, and yet I found a huge disparity between what I read and what my church community accepted.
A couple of examples:
In Luke 17:6, Jesus is reported to have said –
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If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you.
And in Matthew 17:20, Jesus rebukes his disciples for failing to drive a devil from a lunatic that he had given them the power to do, as described earlier in Matthew 10:1 –
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Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.
Needless to say, I didn’t see anyone, even my saintly Sunday school teaching grandmother, commanding trees to be planted on the surface of the Wabash River, or ordering the hills south of Fort Wayne to line up in sensible order.
This is either true, or it isn’t (For those folks who insist the Bible is inerrant, this must be true. Can’t have it both ways.)
Obviously, traditional Christian faith doesn’t give us the tools, or even raise the remote possibility, of the god-like powers described here. But I do not dismiss what Jesus reputedly said here. Exercising a truly working faith, we may in fact be capable of nothing less than the miraculous.
Trial by Fire
Many years ago I was blessed (and I mean that) by the gift of a retreat to Unity Village, the home of the Unity School of Christianity, a few miles southeast of Kansas City, Missouri. It was a remarkable week in many ways.
The boarding arrangements were a bit like a hostel, in that I shared a room with a slightly older man named David. As we got to know each other (and as I developed a level of confidence in his honesty) he shared with me a story about a life-changing event.
David had been involved in a transformational retreat (something like Lifespring, or Personal Success Institute, though I don’t remember the name), where he in fact participated in a firewalk, a walk down a lane of burning coals barefoot as a demonstration of personal power or faith, one of the “rites of passage” that had become fashionable for retreats of this kind.
He told me that participants had been directed to use a prayer, affirmation, or mantra for protection as they did this, and he had in fact selected his own name as his protection — “David,” from the Hebrew Dawidh, or “beloved.” He strode with an even pace across the coals and experienced no discomfort, reached the end, paused for a few moments, repeated his “affirmation,” and surprised everyone by turning around and walking back across them a second time.
(I must confess I’m not planning on rushing out and buying 500 pounds of Kingsford charcoal and some lighter fluid anytime soon.)
There are, of course, scientific explanations as to why David had no issues, but, simply, skeptics must cleave to their doubt and will never understand faith.
Faith in the Furnace
David’s tale reminded me of the Old Testament story in the third chapter of Daniel, of the three good men of faith in Yahweh condemned to death in a furnace. This was recast in a Sunday school song many years ago by gospel song and hymn writer Hugh Mitchell:
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Three good men lived very long ago
Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego
To an idol they would never bow
Shadrach, Meschach andAbednego
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Into a fiery furnace they were therefore cast
Nebuchadnezzar thought they’d never last
But God was there He’d never let them go
Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego.
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Whether the story of Shadrach in the furnace has literal truth, it certainly holds a symbolic one: often faith is forged in a trial by fire, and, if we can learn to face our challenges with faith we will come out better people than before.
Let’s walk.
© 2009, by Daniel Brenton. All Rights Reserved.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Faith is such a critical aspect of life at some point we each hit faith, for it is the boundary between what we can know and what we must go on with.
If attention is the builder of your reality, faith is the glue that keeps everything together. At some point, if you don’t have faith that your body will continue fulfill its purpose it will fall.
Thanks you for your insights on that, I especially enjoyed the quotes
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Great post!