DO you have faith?
Some of you might say, “Why yes I do! Praise the Lord!
And pity on those who don’t.” Others of you might say, “Faith is for pussy’s. Nobody’s taking care of me but me.” Still others might say something like, “I’m not sure, I want to but I feel I don’t. I try but nothing seems to happen.”
So if you’re listening you’re wondering which of those three you are. For some of you, I’m guessing for about a third of you, which of those three you are comes easy and fast. The rest of you are in the middle – the dreadful middle, the Agnosicratic view, the I-wont-make-a-decision-until-I-have-to-philosophy-of lifers, the if-it-cant-be-proven-yet-cant-be-unproven-I-will-wait-and-see-what-develops sitterouters.
Well whichever of the three you are, here’s good news. It doesn’t matter which of the three you are. It doesn’t matter which of the three you are because all three – “Yes I do!” And, “Nobody’s takin care of me!” And, “I’m not sure…” – all three are meaningless.
They are meaningless because you have faith regardless of what you think about it. If you are alive you have faith. Faith is something you and I and every single person here are born with…it’s in the genes…like your nose or your rear end or your hair (well, balding being the exception…it’s not that I don’t have hair, it’s just on vacation)…Faith is more like muscles, a capability…some may have more than others…some may work to expand theirs while others don’t…some may strut around and show theirs off while others hide theirs behind a sack cloth…but the fact of faith is not a choice, it’s just something we have.
Think about it. Just about everything we do requires faith.
Let me prove it to you.
If you believe there is some kind of a war going on in a
place called
If you have actually been there and seen what’s going on…put your hand down.
Hands down
Faith is the ability to believe in, behave as if something is a fact, even if you haven’t seen it, felt it or heard it yourself.
As far as we know, people, humans are the only thing in the universe who can even conceive of the idea of unseen or unfelt or unheard of. So, we have faith. I have to to survive in time.
Raise your hand if you believe there is such a thing as electricity.
Lower your hand if you think you know where it comes from.
How do you know that?
You have faith in the story you heard about where electricity comes from. And, so far, since it hasn’t mattered where electricity comes from, you don’t care too much about it.
Raise your hand if you have seen electricity (lightning), or tasted it (Batteries/tasting the metal), or felt it (electricians, battery lickers, anyone struck by lightning?)
God doesn’t care whether you have faith or not. He cares about what you have faith in.
You have faith in many things that you do not experience directly.
Raise your hand if you have used an elevator in the past 12 months.
Someone’s saying, “What’s he talking about? I got faith from my Mother…in church…”
So, Praise the Lord, we should not take false pride in having faith. There is no point in pitying or condemning a condition you and everyone has. It’s dangerous to refuse to accept the fact…I don’t need faith…when it is a free gift to you. So, there’s no point to the debate on whether you do or don’t have faith. These are all fantasies...they are all ego…they are all erroneous. Faith is one of the human survival tools. It works with another of our abilities…self awareness which generates time awareness. We must have faith because we live in time and are aware of that fact. We use faith to function, to survive. I like to envision faith as a pipe through which something flows…I have this pipe, you have this pipe…we all have faith without asking or thinking about it.
So when someone asks, do you have faith, the answer is yes, everybody does.
The question is, what do you DO with your faith? What do you DO with your muscles? What do you put IN your pipe.
Those things we choose or are taught before we can choose.
Choose wisely. Live long.