You must be confused by that question, arent't you? Faith can be defined as a strong unshakable belief; well that is the definition of a strong faith. Faith can be defined in one other way called 'weak faith'. Weak faith can be defined as a faith that has no clear purpose of existence. And yes ofcourse, I am talking about faith in context with Our lord Jesus and our God. We all can boast that we are follwers of the only true God in the whole wide universe, but, we should indeed be ashamed of the strength of our faith. But most of us suffer from this weak faith and thank God, as usual, he knew of our shortcoming and has indeed given the solution in the Holy Bible.
In my catholic days, when I attended catholic service, for the sake of my parents, I happened to come across a message delivered by the priest. It was a dull saturday afternoon, and I chose to attend church that day. You know why, well I wanted to keep off crowd on sudays and yes I did not want to miss nice liitle weekend specials on TV. I was restless, and my thoughts started wandering when they came to a halt by a sentence. The priest was half way through his message and was working on a parable. A small boy tells his mum, 'Take an umbrella mum, it will rain today" His confidence sort of appealed to me. After supper, while lying down on the bed beside my mum, I asked her about the message and this is what it is:
Once a woman along with the other members of the church prayed for rain. She prayed in the morning. In the evening, she along with her 5 year old son, was getting ready for the evening service. They were all ready and were on their way to church when the boy jerked.
'Mum, you've forgotten the umbrella. I'll go fetch it' The mother was surprised. "But why dear? The weather is fine" "But you prayed for rain this morning ma, you prayed that it should rain today. It is gonna rain then, right?"
The story sort of had no interest for me then. After years of slavery to satan and after my long sought redemption, I understood the value behind the story. My dear brothers and sisters, let us face the truth. We dont give God the faith he deserves. Our prayer is more of a 'hit and try'. We pray with a faint belief and at times even tell God that we would give him this, give him that, if he grants our earthly desire. You know something, God does not expect anything from you and there is nothing you could give that would equal his blessing. All God expects from you is your love. When you learn to love God, you would know what I mean here. But as humans, and as constant victims of satanic doings, we fall short. But God is always more than happy to help. Believe me, thousands of miracles have happened to me in my life, but as yet, I can never say that my faith is strong.
Ultimately we trust our strength, not his. That is why we undergo stress, depression and that is why we sense failure.We trust in humans, at times we are even tried to trust fortune tellers. God condemns everything. The psalmist says it well, "Dont put your trust in human leaders, no human being can save you."(Psalm 146:3) How meaningful the verse is?
True trust in God and faith in his word makes us feel full even in darkest void. It gives us a bright hope for future. I underwent ultimate faith in God. Believe me, and let the mighty God punish me to death if I lie, in my ultimate failure, in an irreversible depth and darkness, I sensed a bright future. I knew that sufferings were going to come my way, but God gave me his strength to carry on through the darkness. I knew that God would show me and lead me on the right path.As a human, I get very angry and frustrated when nobody trusts me. How hurt and wounded God would be when you dont trust him.
Faith in God builds you as a person. It gives you confidence. It changes you, completely. I am a fat person, tall, and was always concerned about my looks. I suffered from low self esteem and was everybodys toy. I attended personality development classes but they never worked. I trusted humans to change me and develop my personality, but they all failed and I failed before the eyes of God. But his magnanimity saved me. Jesus changed me. His plea for me to our God saved me.
But there is one thing all of us must understand. The faith we are all talking about is indeed not a result of our human endeavours but a result of Gods grace. Faith requires courage, spiritual strength and a never die attitude. And I call it Gods grace.
We,as,christians know that our God is the only true God. If we cant trust him, I dont think we would ever understand life.
