Faith Should Cause Us to Live Differently
ONE
Believing in God means coming to know God’s greatness and majesty.
God created everything, He governs and rules everything and He can do everything. God is the Father Almighty, whose fatherhood and power shed light on one another: God reveals his fatherly power by the way he takes care of all our needs, by sharing his life with us making us his children, and by his infinite mercy, for he displays his power at its height by freely forgiving our sins. Nothing is impossible with God. With Him we are safe.
If God is all-powerful and all-good, then why does he allow bad things to happen? He allows it because Our Father wants us to be like Him. So He gave us free will – free to do what is good or do what is evil. But God is so all-powerful and all-good that he works all things for good for those who love Him. That means no matter what happens, He will make it to be the very best for us in the end if we love Him and strive to do His will. But we must be careful not to lose our heads in the midst of difficulty and suffering and do something stupid to ruin it for ourselves while he is working it out.
I love this line from Isaiah 30:15 ‘By waiting and by calm you shall be saved, in quiet and trust you will find your strength.”
TWO
Faith in God means living in thanksgiving.
Everything we have is and has come from God. Therefore, we should live in gratitude. Each day reflect on these questions: For what am I grateful, and to whom I am grateful? All the good things in my life are the concrete manifestations of God’s love for me. Then ask; how have I responded to His love?
We grow in gratitude by becoming aware of the good in each present moment. The good of the person I am with, the nature I am walking in, the work I am doing, the meal I am preparing or eating, this time with God in friendship and prayer.
Find the good of each moment and delight in it and you will grow in gratitude.
In this way happiness follows gratitude.
THREE
Faith in God means knowing the dignity of all men.
Every person has been made by God in His image, that means with the capacity to become an adopted son or daughter of God and all are invited to share in His life through faith, grace, and baptism. As C.S Lewis pointed out so dramatically –
“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you say it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare… There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.
The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbour’s glory should be laid on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken.”
Do we think and treat other people according to their true dignity? If not then we are not living our faith.
FOUR
Faith in God means making good use of created things.
Faith in God, the only One, leads us to use everything that is not God only insofar as it brings us closer to Him, and to detach ourselves from it insofar as it turns us away from Him. A prayer of St. Nicholas of Flue captures this idea well:
· My Lord and my God, take from me everything that distances me from you.
· My Lord and my God, give me everything that brings me closer to you.
· My Lord and my God, detach me from myself to give my all to you.
FIVE
Faith in God means trusting God in every circumstance, even in adversity. St. Teresa of Avila wonderfully expresses this trust:
· Let nothing trouble you / Let nothing frighten you
· Everything passes / God never changes
· Patience / Obtains all
· Whoever has God / Wants for nothing
· God alone is enough.