"Nothing external
can overcome an internal lack of belief
yet no internal belief
can overcome an external lack of effort..."
-Mark Sparks
(Yes I quoted myself but only I was quoted first. Really)
Faith: trust, belief, confidence, conviction;optimism, hopefulness, hope.
Faith has been a topic that's dominated conversations in my life as of late. Just this week I've been approached by several people and spoken to a few friends about the concept of faith.
What is faith? Well, to me, faith - much like love - is a verb not a noun.
Which is to say it is an action & more specifically it is revealed in action.
I grew up in a religious home. My Grandma is a heavily devoted prayer warrior and instilled in me a love of God. Going back I cannot remember a time in my life where the concepts of love, grace and faith weren't present. That foundation has served me well. Thanks Gram's. Thanks Mom. I digress.
As a young man I was groomed as a youth minister. I've even worked on staff and have been blessed to lead both in and out of the church setting. One concept that continually came up with christians was faith. Many christians believe that faith is about belief alone and since leaving the formal church setting many years ago I've learned that many non christians share this same view. I most assuredly agree that faith is based on belief but that is like saying a house is it's foundation. No, a house is built on it's foundation but the foundation alone isn't the house! (For all You biblical folks out there Hebrews 11 aptly titled "Faith in Action").
In order to be faithful or to exercise faith is to live in a way that shows You believe in what You say You believe in. Here's a simple example, if Gregg says He'll meet me at the gym for a workout on Saturday at 2pm guess where I'll be on Saturday at 1:45pm?! The gym! Why? Because I believe that I am going to meet Gregg for a workout (www.GPSFitness.ca). That's faith.
Faith doesn't hope for action, it fuels it. The bigger our faith, the bigger our actions. One of the biggest hindrances to my faith comes when I look for the extreme example of being faithful because that calls me to make a huge jump, and huge leaps are especially challenging when we've not even been consistently taking small ones. Like a workout we, I, must continually strengthen my muscles with progressive load. Like muscles from working in the gym faith grows with continuous & conscious habit building work.
We can never be successful at achieving anything we do not yet see until we can believe that we can achieve it. But we will never achieve anything we say we believe we can until our work ethic and dedication to it's fruition reveals our faith.
Nothing external can overcome an internal lack of belief, lack of faith. Yet no internal 'belief' can overcome an external lack of effort, or display of faith.
I wish You faith building challenges and triumphs along Your journey.
And thank You for reading,
M.
