Reflection
Faith in the broader sense is not any specific religious belief but rather an awareness that God is present in our lives. It is an attuneness to the sacred and an openness to the possibilities of a relationship with the Holy. The challenge to faith is not so much disbelief as indifference or resistance to God’s movement within. Scripture calls it a “hard heart”. It denotes being closed to the work of God’s Spirit. We are cautioned:
“Today, if you hear God’s voice, harden not your hearts.”
Prayer
Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew in me your Spirit.
Action
What is your concept of faith? Review whether you have experienced a “hardened heart”. Why?
Suggested Reading
And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?”
Matthew 8:26
Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.
Hebrews 11:1-2
The substance of the faith remains always the same, but the mode of its expression changes.
Pope John XXIII
Faith is not a theory, a philosophy, an idea; it is an encounter.
Pope Francis
The way of faith is necessarily obscure. We drive by night.
Thomas Merton
Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof.
Khalil Gibran
Faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into the light.
Helen Keller
As your faith is strengthened you will find that there is no longer the need to have a sense of control, that things will flow as they will, and that you will flow with them, to your great delight and benefit.
Emmanuel Teney
Faith is not something to grasp, it is a state to grow into.
Mahatma Gandhi
God enters by a private door into every individual.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.
Rabindranath Tagore
I live and love in God’s peculiar light.
Michelangelo