Belief Comes Before Faith
The belief we hold is the object of our faith
In recent weeks I have come under conviction about belief and how I conduct my life in discourse. I am on a personal journey into the truths of belief and faith, and how God sees my engagement with His world, as described in this recent journal entry.
Belief is the mother of faith
I must admit that I've always had a fuzzy understanding of the relationship between the two. Through a vision, however, I was given a clear depiction. Visualizing a tree (Tree of Life?) from a cut away view, I saw the above ground portion in full and glorious leaf. Below ground, I saw its root system running laterally just below the surface, except for a very prominent tap root that ran straight down and seemed to have some sort of bulb at its end deep in the earth. Then I saw two words: Faith was adjacent the trunk of the tree, Belief was adjacent the tap root. Ergo, there can be no faith without belief, or more to the point, belief must exist before there can be faith. The belief we hold is the object of our faith.
Belief lives in the soul
For my entire life until recently, I was taught and understood that our soul is the source of all evil in our life and should be distrusted. Over the last few years, however, I've come to believe that our soul, which exists after all because the Creator put it in us, is meant for good but has been corrupted as a result of sin to the point it does often act as sin's agent. But it was not meant to. The Lord spoke to me in the early morning hours today, telling me that:
"You must believe in the soul before you can believe in the heart and mind. Belief must exist in all three, but the soul comes first. Without belief there, belief in the heart and mind is not possible."
Okay, I must believe in the soul first. How will I know when I do? Will I feel it? Where? Will I just know it? How? Am I overthinking this? Probably, but I still need a way of knowing when I know.
A word during prayer time
Later this morning, as I was on the deck spending time with the Lord and the Father in prayer, asking for guidance on all of the above, this came spontaneously from deep inside of me:
"I believe that _____ has already been healed. It is just a matter of that time becoming this time."
With this, I believe that God has given me a tool to both grow my belief, something I desire with every fiber of my being, and contribute to _______’s healing.
For this to happen, I must change
Two issues, strengthening my belief and restoring honor to my soul, are of first order importance. I do not have a "how to" in hand yet, which puts me just where God wants me, totally reliant on his instruction and guidance. As I am faithful to pursue him in these, he will be faithful to respond.
There are two other areas that seem to also be emerging: changing my bias system and changing my tone of discourse. My bias has always been toward the analytical/pragmatic side of an equation. Certainly not to the exclusion of the spiritual realm, but more often than not I lean toward the former in everyday matters.
The other issue is one of tone, which can sometimes be harsh or argumentative. I suspect both issues, bias and tone, are related to my personality type (INTJ), which tends toward structure and being judgmental. Guilty on both counts. In responding to a friend's text this morning on the subject of our duty to do our duty and leave the rest to God, I responded with:
"As it happens, I have been convicted on this very point. Father has shown me in the last week or so that it is not my job to convince those around me or even to argue for what I believe is correct, but to live a life that shows them what is correct. It is the inherent credibility of holiness and righteousness in our life that convict and convince others. These are what give power to our words. Without them, our words disappear on the wind."
Basically, what I am saying is that my job is to live the life God desires of me and leave others to do the same. It is okay to advocate for beliefs and positions, but being obstinate or obnoxious about it, as I can sometimes be, is out of bounds. One must understand their own role and style, living and operating within them in ways that glorify God and minister to his creation through truth, grace, and compassion. Role, style, and purpose must be in harmony with God's purpose, or change is needed.
So, yes, change is on the menu.
Shalom