Faith – Part 1

Faith –

  • belief in, devotion to, or trust in somebody or something, especially without logical proof
  • a system of religious belief, or the group of people who adhere to it
  • a strongly held set of beliefs or principles
  • allegiance or loyalty to somebody or something

A one time I had faith that I would/could move mountains. I knew what I believed, not necessarily why I believed it, but I believed. I believed in God, his Son, and something called the Holy Spirit. With God all things were possible. I believed. I didn’t question, at least not out loud. I had no real reason not to believe. Everyone around me believed, at least that’s what I thought. We all attended the same church so wasn’t that enough? I believed because I didn’t know anything else. Everyone that was in authority over me; my parents, pastor, church, school, husband, everyone that I was surrounded by “believed” the same thing.

The rules were pretty simple –

  1. Believe that God is the one and only – divided into three – Father, Son and Holy Ghost. God loved us so much he wanted to provide a way for us to get out of our sinful nature so he sent his son to become the sacrifice for our sins. Jesus died on the cross as that sacrifice.
  2. Ask Gods’ forgiveness, believe and accept that Jesus died for that forgiveness and you are on your way to heaven.
  3. No drinking
  4. No movies
  5. No dancing
  6. And depending on the household – no cards, no TV, no rock music.
  7. And by the way, we are the only ones that have it right… some may be close but not quite.

I should clarify here. I believed #1 and #2. The rest of the rules I had my doubts, but because of all the authority that ruled my life I grudgingly followed; not always happily, but those were the rules.

As years went by and I started to finally start thinking for myself (yes, I finally broke from under the spell) I really began paying attention to what was going on around me, things that were always there but I never took the time to integrate into my thoughts. Hypocrisy was the biggest elephant in the room. I grew up with it – “Do as I say not as I do”, prayer only at dinner; scream, shout and fight the rest of the time. We still followed the rules, but as far as everyday life and knowing or learning who God was didn’t happen. I found that more and more of those people I thought believed the same things and went by the same ‘rules’ weren’t following those ‘rules’. They went to movies, they danced, they even had a drink or two and they listened to other than ‘Christian music’ Hummmm…

Now, I’m not sitting back and saying that I blame my ‘Not knowing,’ my ‘Not understanding,’ or my ‘Not anything’ on everyone else; I believe I was on my own search – quietly inside – noticing and filing away, very slowly putting pieces in a box that one day I would eventually finally start putting together.

Jump ahead – light years and I went through a ‘ring of fire’ that shook me to the very core of that belief system. A system that said “If I had enough faith God would make things right – he would fix everything and all would be well.” I came to a place where I didn’t have enough faith to stay in the situation I was in and that by doing so God would make everything alright. I failed my faith. I didn’t believe. I put God on the shelf because I couldn’t face that failure. I still believed in God; a being that holds life in his hands; something that is beyond our understanding our comprehension; a holder of the universe; an energy that is all being — GOD. But beyond that, I was leaving it all on the shelf. I had too much fear and forgiveness to uncover before I could start building any belief system or faith again.