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Faith is a bird that feels dawn breaking and sings while it is still dark.
*Scandinavian Saying
The Lord will either calm your storm ... or allow it to rage while He calms you.
*Anonymous
Frequently remind yourself that God is with you, that He will never fail you, that you can count upon him. Say these words, "God is with me, helping me."
*Norman Vincent Peale
Practicing faith ... is like developing any relationship. You have to give it time and attention. It requires you to see, hear, feel, and constantly remember your partner ~ God. Have confidence in the relationship's viability, even when you are facing mysteries, doubts, and paradoxes. Trust in this faith, even to the point of staking your life on it.
*www.spiritualityandpractice.com . "Faith."
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When a little boy, our church met in a small red-brick building across the pine woods from my home. One night following the evening worship service, and in the black dark, my mother walked my two brothers and I toward home. She walked before us in the woods, and we followed faithfully, even though we could not see our home. We could see my mother, however. And we trusted her, for we had a relationship with her that had nurtured that faith in each other. We were practicing faith.
Faith, spiritually speaking, can be seen in four ways. Each of these ways is important.
1) Faith is affirming belief.
Belief is very important. Even persons resisting religious faith have beliefs. Each of us has faith in something or someone. The question is "What?" or "Whom" do we trust? We are beings of faith, we cannot escape that. If I say "There is no God," I am asserting a belief, as much as if I say "There is a God." If I say "Jesus was just a man," I am affirming a belief as much as if I affirm "Jesus was God."
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2) Faith is affirming a religion or spirituality.
We talk of having a faith or belonging to a faith. We speak of the Christian faith or Jewish faith, or another group with beliefs and community. Jesus was of the Jewish faith, though it,like other faiths, was made up of different sub-groups. To say "I am a Christian" is to acknowledge "I belong." We do not belong alone; belonging implies a community of similarity.
3) Faith is practicing a relationship.
The New Testament often speaks of faith as a verb: faith-ing, or trust-ing. Faith is not an idea alone, nor is faith merely an ideal.
In the broad scope of the spiritual life, we see faith not as something you have but as something you are in ~ a relationship. It involves an awareness of and an attunement to God's presence in our everyday experiences.
*www.spiritualityandpractice.com . "Faith."
Spiritual faith is something we work at in relationship. As a Christian we know Christ with others in Christ. We know Christ in the other Christian, we seek Christ in the stranger whom we have never met.
Ultimately, we seek God in faith. Emmett Fox wrote, "The root of all difficulties is a lack of the sense of the Presence of God."
We can, unfortunately, due to stress, moral failure, or neglect of our relationship with God have extinguished the sense of God near us. What do we do, then? Seek God and wait patiently and faithfully for a return of that sense of God with us. As has been affirmed:"Sorrow looks back, worry looks around, faith looks up." So, look up until the sense of God's nearness returns.
Remember, Scripture says in James 4.7-9: "Surrender to God! ... Come near to God, and he will come near to you" (CEV). Looking "up" means we re-open ourselves to God, and God honors that act of faith, even though this sometimes means waiting a little longer for the return of a sense of God's presence: "I waited patiently for the Lord to help me, and he turned to me and heard my cry" (Psalm 40.1, NLT).
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