To develop a person-to-Person relationship with God, we need at least the faith of a beginner’s willingness to reach out into the uncertain beyond. To find the truths of science, we must experiment; to find the truths of philosophy, we must interpret meanings; to find the truths of spiritual experience, we need faith. Faith has a receptive phase and an active phase. The receptive phase is that faith is a gift from God: God’s indwelling spirit enables our mind intuitively to recognize spiritual truth when it comes along; and truth itself is a gift. Faith is active in that it is up to us to embrace it and act on it. We act on faith as we enter the heart of what it means to live the truth: developing our spiritual experience and friendship with God and living as a member in the universal family, as we see in the life and teachings of Jesus.
The two phases of faith are intimately connected. I used to welcome the occasional vivid spiritual experience and wish that I could prolong it forever. It was like getting a brand-new, bright yellow, fuzzy, bouncy tennis ball. Now I regard spiritual experience as a part of an ongoing conversation, an interactive relationship, like the back and forth in tennis. It is my job to keep the ball in play. Looking at it this way, I began responding to the experience by making interpreting the experience in a way that enabled me to make some decision for the will of God; then I would look for an opportunity to put that decision into practice the same day. Active responses enable the ball to come back into one’s court more frequently. And the experience need not be dramatic; it may be subtle, like a whisper, or like a special quality of calm.
What experiences have given you a deeper faith in God? What things have you done to stretch your wings and truly exercise your faith?
manos1: lisafanucci: http://mrg.bz/cbnUCG
I have been trying to understand the phenomenon of faith as a tool, how being the most ephemeral of tools, it is at the same time the most powerful one. For me, this has been a fascinating and paradoxical endeavor. The beauty of it is that it never really ends: I believe that we’ll be re-discovering faith at every new turn of our spiritual ascension. Thanks again, Jeff.
Beloved Michael, I’m not sure that the idea of tool is helpful in this case. Sometimes Jesus would say, “O you of little faith!” He was not complaining about how little the Father had given to these persons, but how little they mobilized their powers of mind, soul, and body on the challenge/opportunity they were facing. Examples of healing and encouraging the faith of sufferers come to mind. As someone who has recently broken through to a new level of insight, you are acquainted with the phenomenon in its mystery: the interaction between the conscious mind and soul with the spirit of God is indeed beyond our ability to comprehend. When do we play the various cards, e.g., mobilizing, doing, and turning in silent receptivity and waiting for as long as it takes? Mental rituals can obscure the deeper drama. But if you look back to the first week or so of this weblog, you may recall the thought about weaving the way of simplicity with paths of thoroughness. So mental process can play a helpful role, especially if done in openness to the spirit.
I have been trying to understand the phenomenon of faith as a tool, how being the most ephemeral of tools, it is at the same time the most powerful one. For me, this has been a fascinating and paradoxical endeavor. The beauty of it is that it never really ends: I believe that we’ll be re-discovering faith at every new turn of our spiritual ascension. Thanks again, Jeff.
Beloved Michael, I’m not sure that the idea of tool is helpful in this case. Sometimes Jesus would say, “O you of little faith!” He was not complaining about how little the Father had given to these persons, but how little they mobilized their powers of mind, soul, and body on the challenge/opportunity they were facing. Examples of healing and encouraging the faith of sufferers come to mind. As someone who has recently broken through to a new level of insight, you are acquainted with the phenomenon in its mystery: the interaction between the conscious mind and soul with the spirit of God is indeed beyond our ability to comprehend. When do we play the various cards, e.g., mobilizing, doing, and turning in silent receptivity and waiting for as long as it takes? Mental rituals can obscure the deeper drama. But if you look back to the first week or so of this weblog, you may recall the thought about weaving the way of simplicity with paths of thoroughness. So mental process can play a helpful role, especially if done in openness to the spirit.
There are five basic experiences that have deepened my faith. The first of these experiences occurred when I was assigned to work in a rural area after joining the Commissioned Corps of the Public Heath Service. It was at the beginning of this experience where I realized that the present motive for living was inadequate. It was here that I realized that I needed a persona relationship with the heavenly Father. I was desperate and after being ministered to by my aunt and uncle, I reached out in faith to the heavenly Father and he responded by imparting new meanings and values to my life. This was a period of intense prayer and religious activity. It was doing this period the I dedicated and consecrated my life to doing the Father’s will. Doing this period I had so many revelations of truth I could hardly keep up with them. Fortunately I wrote most of them down, and I have continued this practice.
The second period of deepening faith occurred when I was assigned to work at a Federal Prison for 5 years. This was an extremely difficult period of adjustment for me and required a higher level of faith and trust to function successfully spiritually. But I learned that even though there was a lot of uncertainty doing the period, I learned that God’s will could be done in that environment and I could trust him.
The third period occurred after retiring from the Public Health Service, and consequently working at Fort Bragg Womack Army Hospital. This was a wonderful experience where I met people from all over the world. I even met a lady who was born in a tepee and also a genuine cowgirl which hooked me up with some of my childhood fantasies. This was a challenging experience in that I was ministering to a lot of hurt brothers and sisters, emotionally and spiritually. It required a different level of faith to wade into this area of actually revealing the mercy of the Father t o them, and to realize that what I was doing was God’s will.
The fourth period occurred after leaving Fort Bragg and returning back to the rural area, but this time as a civilian. This was a experience that was now different from the original one in that the patient population had changed. The population now was even poorer and in need of more resources that were not available. Somehow this population had become more material than the previous population. There was not much opportunity to outright minister to this population as they seemed uninterested. They were primarily concerned with survival issues as I had once been. Nevertheless, my faith deepened as a result of trusting that this experience did have divine values and meanings concealed within them.
And the final phase of deepening faith, is the experience of retirement, where my active employment has come to an end, and I am trying to unify all of these past experience and discern the divine values and meanings of this phase of my life. This is a difficult experience that requires an even greater exercise of faith and trust as I move within it.
Throughout all of these experiences, my display of faith qualities have ranged from praying with my patients, encouraging them, reminding them of the promises of Jesus, sometimes just smiling at them, a pat on the shoulder, a willingness to share their pain, encouraging hope in the face of despair, to just faith displaying the divine character of tranquility of spirit and divine stability.
All in all faith is still in action, requiring greater and greater degrees of trust. It is a continuing growth process that keeps me afloat as I deal with the often unpleasant physical realities of this life.
Dr Perry
Dr. Perry, you have a remarkable grasp of your life. Today’s sharing reminds me of your comment on the stages of courage through which you passed: physical, intellectual, and spiritual. Here we see job changes (including retirement) being the occasion for much more far-ranging developments. This gives us the idea that we may see any major change as an occasion for exploring what the faith challenge may be.
These thoughts remind me of psychologist Erik Erikson’s eight stages of development. Each stage of development represented a positive response to a typical challenge for someone in that age range. While it is instructive to consider what is typical, many of our challenges are not typical for persons of any give age range. All of them open opportunities for the reception of new truth and the practice of the truth we are given. Congratulations on making so much of this life!
There are five basic experiences that have deepened my faith. The first of these experiences occurred when I was assigned to work in a rural area after joining the Commissioned Corps of the Public Heath Service. It was at the beginning of this experience where I realized that the present motive for living was inadequate. It was here that I realized that I needed a persona relationship with the heavenly Father. I was desperate and after being ministered to by my aunt and uncle, I reached out in faith to the heavenly Father and he responded by imparting new meanings and values to my life. This was a period of intense prayer and religious activity. It was doing this period the I dedicated and consecrated my life to doing the Father’s will. Doing this period I had so many revelations of truth I could hardly keep up with them. Fortunately I wrote most of them down, and I have continued this practice.
The second period of deepening faith occurred when I was assigned to work at a Federal Prison for 5 years. This was an extremely difficult period of adjustment for me and required a higher level of faith and trust to function successfully spiritually. But I learned that even though there was a lot of uncertainty doing the period, I learned that God’s will could be done in that environment and I could trust him.
The third period occurred after retiring from the Public Health Service, and consequently working at Fort Bragg Womack Army Hospital. This was a wonderful experience where I met people from all over the world. I even met a lady who was born in a tepee and also a genuine cowgirl which hooked me up with some of my childhood fantasies. This was a challenging experience in that I was ministering to a lot of hurt brothers and sisters, emotionally and spiritually. It required a different level of faith to wade into this area of actually revealing the mercy of the Father t o them, and to realize that what I was doing was God’s will.
The fourth period occurred after leaving Fort Bragg and returning back to the rural area, but this time as a civilian. This was a experience that was now different from the original one in that the patient population had changed. The population now was even poorer and in need of more resources that were not available. Somehow this population had become more material than the previous population. There was not much opportunity to outright minister to this population as they seemed uninterested. They were primarily concerned with survival issues as I had once been. Nevertheless, my faith deepened as a result of trusting that this experience did have divine values and meanings concealed within them.
And the final phase of deepening faith, is the experience of retirement, where my active employment has come to an end, and I am trying to unify all of these past experience and discern the divine values and meanings of this phase of my life. This is a difficult experience that requires an even greater exercise of faith and trust as I move within it.
Throughout all of these experiences, my display of faith qualities have ranged from praying with my patients, encouraging them, reminding them of the promises of Jesus, sometimes just smiling at them, a pat on the shoulder, a willingness to share their pain, encouraging hope in the face of despair, to just faith displaying the divine character of tranquility of spirit and divine stability.
All in all faith is still in action, requiring greater and greater degrees of trust. It is a continuing growth process that keeps me afloat as I deal with the often unpleasant physical realities of this life.
Dr Perry
Dr. Perry, you have a remarkable grasp of your life. Today’s sharing reminds me of your comment on the stages of courage through which you passed: physical, intellectual, and spiritual. Here we see job changes (including retirement) being the occasion for much more far-ranging developments. This gives us the idea that we may see any major change as an occasion for exploring what the faith challenge may be.
These thoughts remind me of psychologist Erik Erikson’s eight stages of development. Each stage of development represented a positive response to a typical challenge for someone in that age range. While it is instructive to consider what is typical, many of our challenges are not typical for persons of any give age range. All of them open opportunities for the reception of new truth and the practice of the truth we are given. Congratulations on making so much of this life!