What Is Faith?

I had an interesting question posed to me a day ago. They ask what is faith? It’s a simple enough question, but sharing my personal story of faith aims to inspire reflection and openness in others. As I lay there, pretending to sleep, I began to go back through my own life. I can only speak for myself, and to share my story of faith, I'm going to tell you about my life.

My early years, up until my late teens, were filled with religion, prayer, and church. It was a forced following of God. My father was very religious. If he was going to church, we were going to church. After graduation and working, I didn’t have to go anymore, or better, I was not going anymore, to my father's dismay.

I had very low self-esteem, and being dyslexic, I could barely read or write, so there was really no hope in my life. I got a dead-end job, and in my mind, this is the best I could do. At that time, I got introduced to drugs and alcohol. I found something I was good at. Plus, like any good hobby, you start finding like-minded people to hang out with. Then my illness hit, and that was the beginning.

I gave the responsibility for my illness to everyone but me until the faithful day of saying no to surgery and going into the mental wilderness of finding my own cure. Before that day, I went to my religious counselor and asked how I could have God heal me. He told me nothing that looked like an answer. Instead, it pushed me away from that religion.

My search for God was on. I figured I knew one religion well, so I could read about other religions, searching for my answer. I found they were all pretty much searching for the same thing. To follow, here are the rules you needed to obey. These are the rituals you must do; here are the mindsets you must believe; and here is the initiation, where I give myself over to the figurehead who is now my God. Just like that, I gave over the responsibility to heal myself once again to something else.

Still, that was not cutting it. In my soul, I felt there was more. I went through a period where there was no such thing as God. I spent a few years on that path.  By that time, I was a few years of being symptom free. My illness was an afterthought; meditation was working, but I wanted more. I wanted to understand. I was reading books about the mind and how it could be manipulated and turned against itself, how to feel unworthy, and a host of other thoughts and beliefs that make me feel less than.

I spent many years in my local bookstore's new age section. The new age had just started to become popular, so you could find subjects like yoga, meditation, searching for God, and any other subjects under the sun.

 One day, I wandered through the new-age section, and nothing interested me. I decided to buy the next book that caught my attention and read it. As I scanned the books, a pink book fell off the shelf on the right side of me to the floor. True to my word, I picked up the book, walked to the register, and purchased it. As I walked to the car, I opened the bag and read the title. The title, I believe, was 'Meditating with Angels.' I said to myself, “Here we go,” recognizing this moment as a turning point in my spiritual journey.

True to my promise, I read the book, and on the first night, I followed a meditation from it. I have a meditation room in my home that also serves as my office for hands-on healing sessions. This room is filled with crystal. “Someday I will write a post on my crystals.” I find that when I meditate with crystals or do hands-on healing sessions, they can or will start to make noise; they crack and make sounds. Well, that night they made a bunch of sounds.

The next day, I woke up feeling refreshed, as something had changed. Like this low-grade depression had lifted. I had a mindless job at the time that let me think all day without being bothered by work.

My thoughts lead me to think not that the meditation gave me this feeling, but that the angels did not either; rather, if there are angels, then there must be a god! Then the question is, whose God?

This is where I had to have faith. I reasoned that in every culture there is a popular religion, someone created the story, the image of God, the ideas of God, the rules and rituals of God, and went out to share their news and Ideas with others. I thought to myself, what would God look like to me?  My whole life, I have been told who God was, what he looked like, and how he acted, and how to rejoice in him, but I realized I could shape my own understanding.

Then I asked myself, if no one gave me a description of God, what would my faith look like? Would it have been the Sun, the Moon, the Bear or Deer, a Volcano, and then I said what? I must be the creator of God, and my image of him is based on other descriptions.

Then I decided to play a game, imagine my God. I wanted a God of acceptance, A God of healing, not him doing the healing, but healing that flows through everyone to heal themselves and others. A God of support and understanding when my actions don’t hit the mark.

 A God that goes by many names and meanings, so when many join in worship, we celebrate just one focus, not Gods that create conflict, but a belief that we are all one.

Death is a time of rejoicing; the shedding of the body and ego is a celebration of internal life. Not a judgment between heaven and hell. A god that promotes love and worthiness in all of us. Finally, a God that is inside of me, and any belief that it is not is the mortal sin.

This is my belief and should be treated as such.

Thank you for being my teacher.

Bob