Faith for the Faithless (Finding Faith part 4)

I spent a little time working in a factory which printed, bound, and shipped magazines, catalogs, and the like. During that time, I became acquainted with one of the machine operators who happened to be a very outspoken atheist. As you might expect, his opinion on the Bible was that it is nothing more than “a book of fairy tales.”

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Looking back on my several conversations with this man, I have to admit that I really had no impact on his negative views about the Bible and Christianity, largely because during that time in my life, I was not spiritually grounded at all. I had very little knowledge of the scriptures, and frankly, I was a mess. Much has changed since then, but how I wish that I had known then what I know now!

Which brings me to the sixth and final definition of “faith” from the beginning of this series:

6) a set of principles or beliefs.

Flex Your Faith (Finding Faith part 3)

When I was young and foolish (as opposed to now being older and... hopefully less foolish), I had a friend who convinced me to start lifting weights with him at a local gym. Now my friend was a pretty fit young man, and I was, shall we say… a couch potato. I went with him exactly one time – it was a grueling workout for me, and I remember being barely able to lift my arms for three days afterwards. Not surprisingly, I declined any further invitations to return to the gym.

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I had overdone it. I attempted to do everything my stronger friend could do, and not only did I fail miserably, I found myself in a lot of pain afterwards. The same thing can happen to us in our life of faith.

Let’s revisit one of the definitions of faith from earlier in this series:

4) the theological virtue defined as secure belief in God and a trusting acceptance of God’s will.

It is a necessary assumption that a Christian believes in the existence of God. What is less certain is whether or not we feel safe and secure when we encounter hardships – times when we really have to trust God to come through for us. It’s this trusting acceptance of God’s will that many of us, even mature and seasoned Christians, find so elusive. How can we learn to trust God more fully?