Chapter One
What Is Faith?
We do not guess today the mood, the pleasure, the power of tomorrow when we are building up our being. Of lower states, of acts of routine and sense, we can tell somewhat; but the masterpieces of God, the total growths and universal movements of the soul, he hideth; they are incalculable.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Would you like enough faith to move mountains or part the seas? What about enough faith to get you through a serious illness or the loss of a loved one? Could you use more faith when you contemplate a job change or wrestle with a bout of depression? We all would like an extra dose of this elusive elixir that seems to hide when we need it most. Yet, if we are to find faith, we must first know what it is.
There is no one way to describe faith. Actually, faith cannot be defined. Only approximations can be made. These approximations are personal and subjective, but very real. Every one of us knows when we are feeling hopeless and pessimistic about the outcome of our lives. We all know what discouragement feels like. Most important, we can observe the behaviors that are the result of such feelings. These behaviors can be tracked and labeled. By tracking our feelings and behaviors and giving them names, we can readily see that faith is not an "either/or" proposition but rather a continuum. In other words, we can be more or less hopeful at a particular time in our lives. Our optimism may be higher on one day than it is on another. Paradoxically, our faith can be strong in one specific area of our lives, but weak in another. All of this points to the phenomenon that faith can be affected-increased or decreased-according to a variety of factors.
We will study that phenomenon throughout this book. We will learn what faith is, and how it can be affected and influenced by our intellect and our emotions. We will learn that faith is an innate gift that can evolve through education, practice and commitment. And we will come to know that hope and optimism are not dependent on external circumstances. We are not victims. We are not at the mercy of the life that surrounds us.
The Evolution of Faith Matrix
Our primary learning tool will be the "Evolution of Faith" matrix (see page 4). I developed the matrix and its four stages after being inspired by the groundbreaking work of Marsha Sutton and Eric Stom. The top of the matrix shows the four different stages of faith: natural, lost, educated and enlightened. There is a chapter dedicated to each stage. The columns of the matrix describe the behavioral, mental and emotional components of each faith stage for ten categories of spiritual growth: deity identity, emotional response, intellectual activity, mental participation, innate reaction, probability factor, religious tools, causality, divine involvement and reactive pattern. In this chapter, I explain why these categories are important for the student who is interested in personal and spiritual growth.
What I have tried to show with the matrix is that faith does not have an "on/off" switch-though it may sometimes feel that way. Faith actually falls along a continuum. It can be built over time and with practice. The matrix can be used in two ways: to identify spiritual progress and to guide you along the steps to spiritual growth. Let's take a moment to review the categories.
- Deity identity is our concept of God. Often this is unconscious and may vary from time to time depending on our life situation.
- Emotional response is our internal feeling or reaction to a particular faith stage.
- Intellectual activity is how we think during different faith stages.
- Mental participation is our mind's reaction to a faith stage. (Please note that I am making a distinction between thinking and mind. Mind encompasses thinking, but is much more. For instance, ignorance is not a thought, but a state of mind from which we think.)
- Innate reactions are psycho-spiritual responses to our situations. They are mindful responses of the intellect and heart. Some would say that innate reactions are the pulsations of the soul, or that psychic endeavor that connects us to something larger than ourselves.
- Probability factor is the manner in which our mind connects our mental states and is manifested in our life.
- Religious tools are the different activities or behaviors that connect our intellectual activity with our Deity identity.
- Causality is the manner in which our mental states connect with our level of faith. For instance, if I am applying for a job and my faith is low, I may be less than confident about getting the job. If my faith is high, however, I will have inspired expectations about being hired.
- Divine involvement is how the Deity identity moves in our lives according to our level of faith.
- Reactive pattern is our general demeanor, both mental and emotional, during a particular stage of faith.
These terms will become clearer as we use them through examples and stories.
Our Natural Faith
Each of us comes into this life with God's imprint. Call it our soul. This soul can be expressed through the way we live. We make the choice whether to allow its expression or not. Faith is the soul's desire to have us fully express who and what we are intended to be. Once the soul's desire is obtained, bliss is the payoff. I believe that faith is a gift we receive at our conception. We are born with it, and we can tap into it at any time. Nothing and no one can take away our natural faith but ourselves. Unfortunately, we often give it away. We give it to our parents soon after our birth. We are completely dependent on them for our welfare, and we redefine our faith based on this childhood dependency. Our early impressions and beliefs continue to influence our everyday perceptions and decisions later in life.
Our natural faith is childlike. It defines God as a person. We attribute magic and overwhelming power to this figure. We also give God a personality not unlike that of our parents. Our natural faith usually has us feeling optimistic and hopeful. We have positive visions of our future, and we often interact with our person-God through prayers that are really requests, hoping to catch God in a benevolent mood!
At this stage of natural faith, we often plead with, (request) our God for improved conditions. That is our intellectual activity. Based on that intellectual activity -pleading-what we believe will be the outcome of our request is based on "chance." Consequently, our lives are motivated by one expectation after another, and disappointment often becomes part of the "way life is." We tend to place our faith in upcoming events. We pray these will enhance our well-being, and we have a great deal of hope and optimism around a specific result. At this level of faith, we believe that God's involvement in our lives is probable. We are not certain, but we figure that there is a good chance God is "around." We lose nothing by praying. We say, "If all else fails, try prayer." Our typical reaction is one of resignation. We come to accept our lot in life, but not without complaints.
For several years I worked with a client who initially could only complain about his life. He had been raised in a religion that personified God, a restrictive religion that provided few choices for his life. His entire family was involved in it, and if he wanted to be a part of that family, he did not have much spiritual choice. He had to abide by his religion's tenets. When he came to see me, he was recently divorced, suicidal and in a serious midlife crisis. When I first started working with him, I assumed that the healing would evolve easily. I would encourage him to grieve the loss of his marriage, and he would then be on his way. However, when I took his history, I learned that his mother had died when he was a young boy. This happened although his religion had assured him that if he prayed the right way and diligently enough, his mother would be spared from her illness. His feelings of betrayal went unheeded, and his faith never developed.
He had struggled through adulthood with a great deal of support from his wife and family. Never having developed self-autonomy, he grappled with decisions by not making them. He mainly depended on others to set the course of his life, and if things didn't work out, he complained. He moved from "job to job and town to town," until his midlife crisis and subsequent divorce.
During our sessions, I created a safe environment where he could complain to his heart's content. While his depression lasted, I simply listened to his life of woes. He was miserable, neither happy in his sinful affair, nor able to return to his family and religion. About a year into our work together, and with much encouragement on my part, he began to see that the helplessness he felt was due to his immature faith. He had not dared to question the faith that his religion had taught him. That, plus the trauma of his mother's death, had him stuck in a childish relationship with God. All he had been able to do was plead to an undependable God, and then complain when things did not go his way. In time, his natural faith was slowly restored and he immediately gained confidence in himself. He began to confront difficult situations, and he learned to express his desires with an eye for compromise. His ability to negotiate increased, and he ultimately made some decisions that improved his well-being as well as the lives of those around him.
When our natural faith is gone, we must question what has taken its place. We must place as much faith in our inner strength and capabilities as we do in the outer, infinite possibility for good. We must never cease searching for our faith. It is our most precious gift, and we should never surrender it to anyone or anything.
Faith Enhancer
Set aside some time to consider the following questions
about your faith. You may want to write down your answers:
Who first taught you about faith? Whom did you trust?
When and how did you transfer your natural faith to God?
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2002. All rights reserved. Reprinted from Faith It Till You Make It by Reverend Bernardo Monserrat. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the written permission of the publisher. Publisher: Health Communications, Inc., 3201 SW 15th Street, Deerfield Beach, FL 33442. |
