Navigating Our Faith - Faith 101

Series 3 - Navigating Our Faith

Episode 1 - Faith 101

Transcript

Hi Everyone, welcome back to the Living on Prayer podcast. I’m Emily. So glad to have you back with me from wherever you are for this third series! In this series we’re going to be talking about navigating our faith. Faith is such an important part of our spirituality so I wanted to give it some special time and call out for all of us to pay some attention to it for these few episodes and hopefully in the end we will have either a reminder of the nuances of our faith and how we navigate those various aspects of it in today’s times or an assistance in our current walk of faith. Either way, as always, I’m glad to have you here with me along the journey! 

So let’s dive in! In today’s episode I want to talk Faith 101. You know, like in college when we take our basic courses like English, we go to the class of English 101 or Lit 101. So today we’re going to talk about faith and we’re going to call it Faith 101, it’s just the basics of the topic of faith. Not like elementary school basics but college basics. 

Ok so if you had asked me 10 years ago what my definition of faith was, my answer would have been something like “faith is believing in something you can’t see or touch”. And I think that was a good definition. It definitely defined how I felt about faith at the time and I don’t think it's inaccurate. But how do I feel about that now? Well, my faith and my spirituality has grown even more in these 10 years. My experiences have also helped me to understand so much more about what faith is and how it works. I’ve gotten closer in my relationship with Christ and in return He’s developed and grown my spiritual gifts and my natural gifts as well. I’ve studied more in the Word and prayed more and talked more with other believers and put into practice what I’ve learned and been given overall. I call all of this together my spiritual muscles and my spiritual muscles have been exercised and taken care of and are working for me. But just like our human body muscles they require constant care. And faith is part of our spiritual muscle package so by caring, feeding, and exercising my spiritual muscles I receive things like increased spiritual gifts, increased intimacy with Christ, increased trust, increased wisdom, discernment, and so much more. But it takes me working my spiritual muscles out to see and feel and receive the benefits. Faith is part of my workout. I must provide God with my faith. To show Him that I am committed to Him and His directions and His promises for my life even if my human brain and my human heart doesn’t understand them or even worse than that even if my brain and heart are telling me it’s not possible, it’s not plausible, there’s no way it can be done. Faith is commitment to God that I believe He not only exists but that He absolutely can do all things and will do all of the things that He has promised He will do when His timing is perfect. That is my more recent definition of faith now. It feeds on my favorite verse of Philippians 4:13 which is “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” and you know what, I truly believe that. I absolutely can do all things but only through Christ who gives me the strength to do them. But that’s my faith in Christ Jesus that I believe so much in Him. And I also believe that He can do anything and not only CAN He but THAT He WILL if he so determines it’s necessary to and He will also give me and any of His other children the strength to do all things as necessary as well. It’s a powerful statement that requires powerful faith but I work out my spiritual muscles constantly so that I can have that kind of powerful faith. It takes work, but like my family has always said, anything in life worth having is worth working for, right? 

So here’s another way that faith has been defined. There is a famous poem known as the “Faith” Poem that was written by author Dr. Patrick Overton many years ago, back in the late 90’s. It’s a poem I love so much that I have it on my bookcase in my home. It’s short and sweet and it goes like this “When you walk to the edge of all the light you have and take that first step into the darkness of the unknown, you must believe that one of two things will happen: There will be something solid for you to stand upon, or, you will be taught how to fly” That’s a bit more of a complete description of faith than my answer was from 10 years ago and it’s definitely way more poetic and beautiful than my answer ever was or even is now. What Dr. Overton described was not just a belief or conviction in what you can’t see or touch, which is what I had originally said. But he took it further. He said when you get to the edge of the light and you step into the darkness of the unknown, you must believe one of two things will happen. So right there he’s saying, there’s more. He’s giving it context. He’s describing it. He’s putting a label on it. He says step out there into that darkness, into that unknown and believe what…believe you’ll either have something solid to stand on OR you’ll be taught how to fly. That’s right! That’s faith. You’re not left alone in the darkness. You’re not left alone in the unknown. That’s faith. That’s a true definition of faith right there folks. It’s so basic that we forget it most days. We’re not alone. We forget it when we’re in the light. Why? Because we don’t need help right? But the minute we step out into that darkness, into that unknown, we get scared and we lack that faith sometimes. But Dr. Overton said it so well. We just have to believe in one of two things. We’ll have a solid step or we’ll be taught how to fly. So great! I just love it. That poem blesses me so often. I forget at times that I just need the step or I need the wings but I have them. I have the faith that my Lord will give them to me if I have faith in Him to take that next step. It’s something to keep in mind when we’re in the darkness and lacking faith. God just asks us to have faith in Him and know that He’ll give us a step or He’ll give us wings to fly. Either way, just take the next step in the darkness because He’s got us. Just one step at a time sometimes but with each step we have the faith.

So look I’m not going to lie and tell you that from a Christian’s perspective that I totally followed this concept of faith as an adult. As a child, I had much more faith. I think Jesus said it well in Matthew 18 when he talked about how we as mankind need to humble ourselves to be like children in order to enter Heaven. He said in verses 3-5 “I tell you the truth, unless you turn from your sins and become like little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven. So anyone who becomes as humble as this little child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. And anyone who welcomes a little child like this one on my behalf is welcoming me.” I became a Christian at a young age and my faith in Jesus was so strong as a child and young person. I know I had a childlike faith before becoming an adult. It was my years of adulthood that wore me down the most, that jaded me into doubting my faith the most, into doubting Him the most really. And that’s what Satan wants, that’s what the devil always tries to accomplish with us. Satan is always using his playbook of spiritual distractions, those things like doubt and fear, like worry and lies and manipulation to control us and to of course make us think that God is the one hurting us or not helping us or not loving us or not being there with us or for us. When in fact it’s the devil intervening. But that falls back on us for allowing the devil to get into our hearts and minds and interact with our free will though. Just remember that God won’t intercept our free will. That’s our right to use free will completely. God wants us to come to Him on our own but Satan doesn’t play that way. Satan will bring you over to him by any means necessary. So faith in God is part of our own free will. We have to maintain free will and believe in God no matter what the devil is telling us or showing us or making us believe. And this comes from practice, from working out those spiritual muscles, so that they’re strong when we need them. And it can also come from that childlike faith if we have it, that faith we might have developed as a child like I did. If you were able to develop that faith in your younger years then tap into faith when you can. Pull into that faith that’s been buried in your heart when necessary. As Jesus said, become like a little child and humble yourself. Believe like a child. That’s where some of us have been fortunate enough to have faith that’s been buried in our hearts and minds for many years, maybe decades, that’s been deeply rooted. Way down inside of us all the way back to maybe even our childhood. If you’re like me in that way, I feel blessed to have that. To have that faith, to have those seeds in me that I can tap into. And when I can’t always remember them I just ask God to remind me, to help me, to bring them up to the surface when I need them and somehow the words come. The resources show up, the scriptures I need appear on the page or the screen. The pastor preaches on what I need to know, I read or hear what I need to understand. He delivers, he really does. But it’s not just about God’s part here. I have to be willing to want the help, to hear it and understand it, to apply its direction, and of course say thank you for it all. Faith isn’t a one-way street where we ask God for help and he delivers.   

So with that let me read how the Scripture describes faith at a high level. In Hebrews Chapter 11, Verse 1 the Bible says “Faith shows the reality of what we hope for, it is the evidence of things we cannot see.” Now let me explain what it really says here. It says that faith displays, shows out, what we hope for, those things that are in our hearts and minds. The things we might say out loud or maybe the things we are praying for, the things we are truly believing in and hoping deeply for deep down inside and not telling a soul because we don’t want anyone to jinx it for us. Faith brings that out as the evidence of what we can’t actually see yet. So when we’re holding on to something so tightly and believing for it, praying for it, hoping for it then faith is what brings it about. We can’t see it yet but we have to hope and believe first before it appears, that’s faith. Now flip that around, and understand that when we tell ourselves something won’t happen, it can’t happen, we’re not good enough, we can’t have it or can’t have someone or can’t have that relationship, can’t have that job, can’t make that kind of money, can’t be that healthy, can’t be that good looking, then basically that’s the opposite of what faith really accomplishes isn’t it? We’re diminishing what’s in our heart. We, of our own free will, are throwing away those dreams, those hopes, those desires. Why would we do that? Because it didn’t happen in our timing? Because we can’t see a way for it to happen. That’s not for us to understand. But we do have a choice to hold on to our dreams, hopes, and desires for as long as we want to. To pray for them, to hope for them, to dream of them. That doesn’t mean you have to tell the world about them or your family about them. But if you let go of them, if you tell yourself that it can’t happen, you are telling God that you don’t want them, you don’t need them, that you don’t believe He can do them. So if you let them out of your heart then you are losing faith that they will ever become real which is what God had intended for your life.<pause>

Now let’s put all of these different definitions together so we have a better picture of faith in our minds and hearts to work with going forward for this podcast season and I hope forever honestly. Faith is a part of our full spirituality, a belief in Christ that He is working all things for our good in His timing and will provide us with everything we need at the right time through our free will and relationship with Him, whether we can see or know what is going on in the darkness or the light, understand what is real or not, or have control over events of the past, present, or future. It is hard to sum up faith in one sentence but for the purposes of this series I think this a good way to define faith and it’s definitely a good summary of the topics we’ve discussed here in Faith 101. 

So in this podcast series I want to talk more about faith and how we can navigate it in today’s world. I feel like this topic builds off of the first two podcast series, which were entitled God’s Love and Spiritual Distractions, and walked through the various subtopics like unconditional love, forgiveness, love in action, grace and mercy, spiritual armor, spiritual distractions, and plenty of others and did include some biblical stories and examples so I do hope you’ve listened to those episodes or will go back and take a listen to if you haven’t already.  I think it’s important to understand that God is love and to also understand how the devil uses spiritual distractions as part of his methods against us every day and how we can better prepare ourselves and others in today’s world. Understanding both of these aspects is part of the process to navigating our faith so again I hope you will take some time to listen to the episodes at some point.

As I always do for each series, I like to close each episode of the series in a similar way. This series I want to close out the episodes with a scripture reference related to faith. We have so many to choose from that it actually makes it difficult but that’s why I love to do it. I love to scour the Bible doing my research and in this case it made it fun reading so many scriptures so I took pleasure in this particular endeavor. And for today’s closing scripture reference, I will close out with Isaiah Chapter 41, Verse 10 in honor of my son who is serving in the Army on active duty. I gave him this verse on a key chain a while back to remind him that he is never alone and that God always has his back and of course as a Mom it warms my heart to know he still carries it with him. So here is Isaiah 41:10 “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God: I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

Thank you all for joining me for this first episode in this series of Navigating our Faith. I’m so glad you were here and I look forward to having you back again for the next episode. As always, please remember that God loves you, He’s thinking about you, He’s walking ahead of you and working all things out for your good. Please keep your faith strong and reach out to Him to maintain your relationship with Him. He always loves to hear from you! Until next time, please stay safe. Bye everyone!