Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Episode Nine

I have faith in myself and the process I am going through. Faith is such an interesting concept because it suggests “blind” without saying so. I would suggest that faith requires careful observation and is not blind at all. Having faith in oneself is easy when everything is progressing apparently, and much more difficult when at a stuck place, but having faith at the stuck place is the more important expression of faith.

I really appreciate the Biblical story of Job. I like the double-entendre of “Job” and “job”. It is a story about faith at its roots and it is a story about the work faith is when the job isn’t easy. Job is plagued with challenges and well-intentioned advice for many years. He appears to lose everything that he appears to value except his faith that it is all part of the life he is meant to have and that he will survive the consequences by living with integrity, honor and honesty. He has faith in God to see him through it all. There is nothing that can shake his belief that LIFE LOVES HIM, and that drives the fallen angel Lucifer mad.

Having had some apparently good times, prosperous times, abundant times and having experienced the worst of times, loss so painful I thought it might kill me, and true worry for the basic necessities of life, I can say with courage that I have faith in myself and the process I am going through. I fully understand that another word for faith is job, and that means I have to work with whatever comes along with the belief that LIFE LOVES ME regardless of appearances. I have faith that it is all neutral in truth and that what’s good today may not look good tomorrow and has nothing to do with the real stuff of life, and vice versa.

Observation of a whole lifetime will make it clear that everything that happens balances out in the end. To me faith finally comes down to accepting that life is essentially neutral, neither good or bad wins out for anybody in the end UNLESS one can be grateful for the whole process of it. So then we'll leave this experience either feeling our faith was justified, or we'll leave this experience feeling that there was no reason to have faith. I'd choose the former over the latter any day.

No comments: