I sure hope you are having a good R&R (rest & relaxation) summer. I tried to make the case in my last article that our mental, physical and relational wellbeing are helped much by a season in which we are less busy and stressed and have time to slow down and reflect on our lives.
The same goes for our ‘faith’ life. For many of us the normal hubbub of life during most of the year – especially if we are raising kids – often leaves us with precious little time to nurture our spirits, values and faith. Hopefully summer is a time for you to slow down and attend to this integral part of your life and wellbeing. To that end I offer the following bunch of wise thoughts from people way smarter than me, with some hopefully helpful comments of my own mixed in..
Faith/spirituality are one of life’s essentials.
Ernest Holmes
We can no more do without spirituality than we can do without food, shelter, or clothing.
Mahalia Jackson
Faith and prayer are the vitamins of the soul; man cannot live in health without them.
These two sages challenge us to understand and practice that healthy faith is just as important as healthy food.
Why is faith so important?
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
It’s faith in something and enthusiasm for something that makes a life worth living.
Victor E. Frankl
Faith is trust in ultimate meaning.
Humans are different from other animals in that we ponder the meaning of life, and need clear goals and purposes for our living especially in hard times. When these are not there we are prone to despair and hopelessness.
But isn’t it difficult to figure out our faith and the things we want to believe in and live for?
Voltaire
To believe in God is impossible; not to believe in Him is absurd.
The great 18th century French philosopher describes it beautifully: sure it is hard to have faith in God, but if we are honest it is absurd to then conclude and live as if God doesn’t exist.
A Nobel Prize winning physicist – a man of Science – says it actually isn’t that difficult:
Arthur H. Compton
It is not difficult for me to have this faith, for it is incontrovertible that where there is a plan, there is intelligence.
An orderly, unfolding universe testifies to the truth of the most majestic statement ever uttered – ‘In the beginning, God.’
And the great Albert agreed:
Albert Einstein
That deep emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.
Indeed, people of faith are often criticized for their ‘illogical’ faith in a Deity who created all things. Surely it is more illogical to maintain the opposite – that the “orderly, unfolding universe” came into existence from nothing all by itself?
How do we overcome the narrow ‘scientific’ worldview which has instilled us with doubt and skepticism thus to brainwash us into not seeing faith/God? Skepticism and doubt have their place but …
Edwin Hubbel Chapin
Skepticism has never founded empires, established principals, or changed the world’s heart. The great doers in history have always been people of faith.
Khalil Gibran
Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.
Meaningful, purposeful living requires us to not let our thinking and believing be dominated by skepticism and doubt, rather recognize that they won’t get us to a healthy place.
Lebanese-American poet Khalil Gibran has a wonderful image:
Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking.
Thinking is a good thing but not the only thing.
Francis Parker Yockey
Faith is, always has been, and always will be, stronger than facts.
Faith is about the non-concrete realities of life that are beyond/more than thinking – love, beauty, art, music, a sunrise canoe ride on quiet northern lake with the loon calling – need I go on?
A great analogy is offered by Patrick White:
I think it is impossible to explain faith. It is like trying to explain air, which one cannot do by dividing it into its component parts and labeling them scientifically. It must be breathed to be understood.
You find and understand faith by ‘breathing’ it in AND by living it:
Edith Hamilton
Faith is not belief. Belief is passive. Faith is active.
Finally, faith is about living by a bigger story than your own daily realities, as explained by Nick Vujicic, an Australian pastor/motivational speaker (look him up on YouTube) who was born and has lived all his life without any legs or arms:
Faith is walking by faith, not by what you feel. You are not always going to feel that Jesus loves you or that God is good, but you know He is.