The ARDS Foundation - Body, Mind, & Spirit

By Pastor Ian

"Our Faith As A Lifestyle"

 During these past two or three weeks some things have happened which might give cause to question many of the beliefs we hold dear in our hearts. I am talking about a thing called “FAITH.” But faith has many avenues and some people, not understanding this, might well claim to have no faith at all. So, let’s try a simple test.

How many of you doubt the sun will rise tomorrow?

Get my point…… We have faith, or if you like, strong belief in an event that is 99.999999999% certain to happen…in our opinion.

O.K. So we all have faith. I know that was a simple test, but what you have just done is to say that you believe something will happen……. which has not yet happened…..you believe….YOU HAVE ABSOLUTE FAITH the sun will rise tomorrow. Hey, with the weather we have had this summer I begin to wonder???

Now, have you ever thought of FAITH as being a LIFESTYLE??? Paul of Tarsus said :

“Faith is being sure of what we hope for, and certain of what we do not see.”

Faith is also many other things, so let’s begin with FAITH as Spiritual belief. It is something most of us have to a greater or lesser degree and we just could not get through life without it. Unfortunately events happen in all of our lives which cause us to have doubts about many things, none the least of which is to doubt our Spiritual beliefs, whatever these may be. It is at the crisis times in our lives that we need our faith more than ever.

Faith, you see, is a latent energy within each and every one of us.

· In some people, during their lives, the conditions never seem to be right and their Faith is never kindled.

· In other people Faith is set alight, burns for a short time and then slowly dies as the embers of that fire grow cold.

· In yet others, there is what we might call a God moment, and Faith is set alight …. It catches hold and continues to stay alight because they feed it constantly….the more fuel we place on the fire the brighter that the fire burns….

Faith as Spiritual belief needs to be fed and watered on a regular basis during the good times of our lives; during those times when we might say that we really don’t need our faith as we are getting along just fine. Our faith needs to be nurtured on a regular basis if it is to be there for us when we need it most of all. Now what about Faith in Creation? (Our sun rising)

There is a book called: “All I Ever Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten,” by author Robert Fulghum.

It is a great little book, and it contains some sage words of simple wisdom. It begins something like this:

“Most of what I really need to know about how to live, and what to do, and how to be, I learned there in the sandbox in kindergarten.

These are some of the things I learned:”

Share everything.

Play fair. Don’t hit people. Put things back where you found them.

Clean up your own mess. Don’t take things that aren’t yours.

Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat.

Flush.

Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.

Live a balanced life.

When you go out into the world, watch for traffic, hold hands and stick together.

Now these words of Fulghum are very nice and good basic life skills for young people, and for that matter for adults….but he goes on to say this….. (And here we have FAITH in Creation):

He says: “Be aware of wonder, remember the little seeds in the plastic cup. The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why…and we are all like that.”

Think about that……The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows why!!

And if we don’t know why, then WHY do we bother taking the trouble to plant? We do it because we know that something is going to happen…..We do it because we have FAITH in the event which is about to take place when we plant the seeds in the ground. We have FAITH in Creation.

Prayer of intercession is like that……and we in the ARDS Foundation know all about that. Not a week goes by that we do not add more people to our prayer list as we are informed of people all across North America who are in crisis with this terrible illness. A few days ago I added a young person to my own prayer list. She had been in a road accident and had developed ARDS as a result. In the blink of an eye her life was turned upside down.

When that happens our confidence…our beliefs….our Faith can take a tremendous hit, and I know that some of you reading this are saying to yourselves….I am like that….my faith “seems” to be small, inadequate….I struggle sometimes with my faith,

And I would say to you… … SMALL is sufficient… Work with what you have….don’t ignore it…GIVE IT YOUR ATTENTION… Encourage it….feed it…water it…and I promise you, it WILL grow, and your FAITH will be strengthened, restored, and rewarded.

If we have simple FAITH, we don’t need to know why the roots go down and the plant goes up.

All we need to know is that the deeper the roots go down the stronger the plant will be.

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