Defining “faith”
Jul 9th, 2009 by ljkim
Faith really isn’t about a warm fuzzy feeling in the pit of your navel. On the contrary it often means going against your gut feelings altogether. When you stand on a precipice because you KNOW it is safe, even though every fiber of your body shouts otherwise, that’s faith. When you are true to someone or something even when your promise seems inconvenient, unnecessary, ill-advised, we call that being faith-full.
Faith requires using your mind and giving your understanding priority over your feelings. There are times when you feel like running, but you know you should stay. And there are times you want to keep going but you know you should stop…although you might not be able to remember exactly why at the moment. To do either of these requires faith…a trust that is (hopefully) built upon understanding.
Now some people think that this is an outdated concept, but very little would get done if it weren’t for brilliant people exercising faith in things… It’s counter-intuitive that a 30,000 ton piece of metal can float on water, but they do… Or 900,000 lbs of steel could fly through the air… It may also seem highly unlikely to some that a merciful and wise Creator is behind everything in this world. Obviously we need to go beyond our gut impressions and learn the deeper truths behind all this stuff. But what we walk with on a daily basis will always be a faith of some kind or another…in the end it will be your faith that gets you places (provided you have faith in things that are worthy of your faith).
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