Having Faith
“Believe and you shall receive,” is the backbone of manifesting whatever you need in life. Faith is a step up beyond belief. The benefits of faith may be somewhat tainted or bit old fashioned, but I think it is a great word and still in style. It can move mountains, we are told. Maybe so, but I have no mountains that I feel need to be moved, so in this commentary, I am going to look at faith in everyday life. From my way of looking at spiritual evolution, its associated practices and principles need to be applicable to day-to-day life if they are to benefit my journey.
Faith is not for the weak hearted or weak kneed. Having faith requires a solid grounding in whatever it is that I am investing my energy. Faith contains an element of assuredness that may not be present in belief. For example, I can believe that waging war is not in the highest and best interest of our world. I can have that belief and go about my daily life without another thought about it. If I have faith that war is not in the highest and best interest of our world, I raise the ante. How is this so?
The Difference Between Faith and Belief
To believe is to having a knowing about something. If I don’t have a clock, and someone asks me what time it is, I can say, “I believe it is two PM.” That is, based on whatever means I have for telling time, I think it is two PM. To have faith is to go beyond knowing to understanding, to certainty, whether I have a timepiece or not. If I answer the “what time is it” question form a position of faith, I might say, “It is two PM,” without condition or equivocation. What enables me to go from belief to faith?” In this example, you might be tempted to say, “Get a watch, duh?”
That is an answer for this example that works; however, lots of times, there is no answer that is that tangible. Do I believe in God, or do I have faith that there is God? Do I believe that when I die my essence is immortal and simply shifts energy states, or do I have faith that this will happen? These and many other “belief or faith” questions taunted me for decades, after I started believing in God, and dangled metaphysical carrots in front of my empty, air grasping hands. Belief is a comfortable resting place on my spiritual journey. It is tempting to hang out there and go no further.
Consequently, I (and many, many others) have lots of comfortable beliefs that I use to shape my view of the physical and metaphysical worlds. What is lacking is commitment. When I commit to a belief, I enter the realm of faith. Because of some of the work that I do now, I read a lot of metaphysical-oriented work. Some of it is presented in such a definite and forceful style, that I begin to think that the article is written from faith. But, then I wonder, is the author writing from faith or a belief that is rooted in fear? Herein lurks the “belief booby trap.”
The “belief booby trap” is one that you set for yourself when you need others to buy into your belief. Sometimes we want others to buy into our beliefs so that we will be held in high esteem, and thus apply a little topical anesthesia to the pain of feeling that we are not worthy. Sometimes, it is difficult for me to assess a writer or speaker’s faith in what they present. As always, my old standby, discernment, is needed to make the call. If I really listen to my discernment, my inner understanding divorced from ego, then the answer I receive is valid.
Now and then, a reader not only takes issue with what I write, but questions my IQ and parentage. I must admit that sometimes I feel as if I have been punched in the stomach. Even though, I know enough to realize that it is my ego that received the blow, there is that precious moment when I know that the reader has seen through the wall protecting myself, and knows me for who I perceive I am.
Although I have healed my major emotional wounds, the reflexes they left behind continue to be triggered by karmic moments that I need to process. They are now easier and faster to resolve with loving acceptance.
The Benefits of Having Faith
When did my faith grow wings and take off? Answer: in that case, faith was never there; if it was present when I opened the fateful email, I would have simply and lovingly accepted the reader’s comment and gone on my way. I experienced yet another “karmic moment” when I am on the cusp of how will I process the seeming attack on my worthiness? Will, I find my faith in what I wrote and lovingly accept the reader’s insults, or will I begin crafting a biting reply to the jerk who dared assault my words? It is an interesting moment to experience as are all karmic moments, big or small, when I have awareness of them. There is that boogey-principal again, awareness. My, but awareness does haunt me, and that is good. I need reminders.
Let’s bend around in a full circle in this belief – faith model. To believe is to accept something. To have faith is to understand that something is. The difference between the two is commitment. When I have faith, I am committed to the existence of that in which I have faith.
More simply, belief = probably; faith = certainty.
Belief makes me seem knowledgeable. Faith makes me unimpeachable. Belief is a rest area on my spiritual journey; faith is the fuel that takes me forward.
Belief is not wrong, bad, or evil. Beliefs are important to us for they are the foundation for faith. First comes belief, then faith. The essence of using belief in spiritual evolution is to realize what it is present in a belief in contrast to faith. Having faith raises the ante, but not every belief needs to be fired in faith and shaped on the anvil of experience – just the ones that are the foundation of who we define ourselves to be.
So, Lilly, is anything that you write, written in faith, or is it all belief? I admit that some of what I write does come from belief. 99% comes from faith – I am committed to every word I write. What is important for you is that you understand what you are faithful to. When you do that, life becomes a lot simpler and easier.
TRUST in yourself, also goes hand in hand with belief & faith
TRUST is expecting the best to happen, believing in YOUR ability to create what you want, and knowing you deserve to have it. It is demonstrated by believing in something or someone even when the outer world seems to reflect something else. It is demonstrated by talking of your having it (or him or her) even if you do not yet see it or him or her around you. It is not enough to sit around and believe.
Demonstrate trust by listening to your inner guidance and taking action on it. Since you live in a world of form and substance, action is the physical link to having what you want. Every time you are willing to take a risk, you increase your ability to trust and to believe in yourself. There is a difference between trust and hope. Trusting is believing and knowing that what you want will come (or come back); hoping is wanting something but not really believing that it will.