Inspiration

Do You Have Faith in Yourself and Others?

The many faces of faith

When many of us hear the word faith, we think of it in the sense of religion, even though there are different kinds of faith. Let’s examine how these other kinds of faith work in our lives and their many benefits.

Faith and its varieties

Where do you place your faith? You can put it in yourself, others, your job, marriage, finances, diet, science, today, tomorrow, what you can see, what you can’t see, and so on. Faith can also be referred to as dead faith, living faith, saving faith, lack of faith, etc.

As you can see, you can put your faith in practically anything, so yes, you are a person of faith just like everyone else on earth!

What exactly is faith?

To many of us, words like faith, belief, and trust are synonymous despite having slightly different meanings. The definition of each, according to the Oxford Languages Dictionary, is:

faith — complete trust or confidence in someone or something.

belief — an acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists.

trust — firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something.

The cycle of belief, faith, and trust can help us further understand the difference and relationship between the three words. The pattern of this cycle is:

• When we believe something is true, we act on it
• We enter into faith as we await the outcome
• When the outcome is what we expect, we develop trust

This pattern repeats countless times in our lives.

If you still doubt that you are a person of faith, let’s look at some questions that may help.

• Do you think tomorrow will come? You have faith it will or won’t, or try to walk the line between the two.
• Do you believe you will be alive ten minutes, one day, one month, or one year from now? Unless you are on your deathbed, your answer is probably yes. Rarely will someone say they don’t know. If the answer is yes or no, you have faith in the future. If your answer is you don’t know, your faith is in doubt.
• Do you believe in spirituality? You either believe in it as a deist, deny it as an atheist, or not know it as an agnostic. These three forms translate to faith in the spiritual, faith in its nonexistence, or faith in doubt.

There is no way to get around it; you will always put your faith in being for, against, or doubt.

Where do you put your faith?

How you define faith says a lot about you. When you started reading this article, you may have thought it was about religious faith, yet it is not. This article is based on the premise that faith is a natural part of life and living.

The very essence of faith is it exists in something not yet seen. Think about how marvelous your mind is. You can create virtually anything you want through your thoughts, beliefs, actions, and faith.

“Whatever Your Mind Can Conceive and Believe, It Can Achieve.” Napoleon Hill (1883–1970)

Can you imagine a complete lack of faith in yourself and others? A life without belief, faith, and trust is inconceivable. You exist by faith from moment to moment, day to day, and year to year.

No part of life goes untouched by faith. We can have faith in things that exist and in things that do not exist. Yet, faith itself exists only in our minds.

“Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.” Augustine of Hippo (354–430)

The benefits of faith

Faith gives you strength, filling you with confidence. Without faith, you would be weak and filled with doubt. Without faith in yourself and others, chaos would rule.

The stronger your faith, the stronger you are. The weaker your faith, the more turmoil you invite into your life.

The right kind of faith provides positivity and hope. It makes life better. As scripture says, faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

Faith makes life and living possible. Without faith, life ceases to exist. A wonderful thing about faith is everyone possesses an inexhaustible supply! The only limit to how much faith you have is you and the way you see the world.

“Faith is the strength of life.

If a man lives he believes in something. If he did not believe that one must live for something, he would not live.” Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910)

Final thoughts

Aren’t you glad faith exists, and you have an unlimited supply of it? Faith makes life rich, allowing us to trust and have confidence in our lives and others. Life without faith is truly unimaginable.

Faith is the very essence of life.

I leave you with the words of a wise man to think about as you journey through your life of faith.

“Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof.” Khalil Gibran (1883–1931)

May you have great faith and strength in your convictions and accomplish many wonderful things in life!

BillAbbate| LinkedIn |Twitter| Medium| Facebook| AmazonAuthorPage | NewsBreak | Truth

Bill Abbate Leadership Writer and Editor in ILLUMINATION

Thank you for reading this article! If you enjoyed it, please check out the others below! Each was boosted by Medium!

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