The concept of faith is hard to grasp.
Faith is believing that things are happening, and will happen, without actually being able physically see it before your eyes. Faith is completely putting your trust into something or someone, even though you feel like you’re jumping blind and clueless into the unknown.
I have always been a pretty religious person. I grew up going to a tiny church in a tiny town with a very country preacher who had no problem relating every sermon to farming, hunting, and everything in between. I watched, and continue to watch, all three of my older brothers grow in their relationships with the Lord, which has always encouraged me to stay close to God. I can honestly say I never believe that I “fell off track” with God, but I am definitely more in-sync with him now than I was a year ago.
Throughout my first semester of my sophomore year of college, I was definitely not being the person God would have wanted me to be. It was a semester full of disappointment and hurt and at the time, I believed it to be because I was out of my comfort zone. Now looking back, I know it was because I was out of sync with God.
In December, after the hard semester was over, a friend came over to my house and began talking about the concept of faith. Faith that things will work out, faith that people can change, faith that time heals all wounds, and faith that people can indeed forgive whole-heartedly.
From then on I trained my mind to become faithful. I researched the definition of faith. I prayed more than I had ever prayed before, and then one day I woke up and I felt different.
For the first time in months, I felt genuinely good. I cannot say that I felt complete, because that isn’t true. I didn’t feel complete and I still don’t feel complete, but I did feel like a piece fell into place.
It was weird because when you’re not in love, you know you’re not in love and you know that piece is a piece that is missing in your life. In my opinon, no one is complete without being in love, that is just how the Lord made us… that’s just how life is.
But, when you’re out of touch with the Lord, you might not even feel it. You may not even know until something bad happens and suddenly you feel guilty because you’re praying to someone that you haven’t even spoken to in months. So when I woke up that morning, a piece that I didn’t even know was missing was put back into place – and that was a feeling like no other.
I found myself telling girls this story a couple weeks ago when Appalachian State held sorority recruitment. I told them that my friend introducing me to the concept of faith really changed my life and it caused me to re-evaluate my priorities.
Sometimes we just get so caught up in everything happening around us that we forget to look up and just say thank you. I can only hope that the freshman girls took that conversation to heart because the sooner you find your faith, the better.
I now find myself feeling stronger and I’ve learned to see God in all of the opportunities that life provides for me.
I see God in my niece (pictured below) and nephew. I see hope even when it rains in Boone for literally a week straight. And I have faith that eating Bojangles every other day won’t cause me to have to buy bigger jeans. I’m just hoping that maybe if I pray about it enough then God just won’t do that to me…
Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” Don’t wait until something bad happens in your life to go find your faith. Do it now, while things are good. Pray while things are going your way so that when a struggle arises you don’t have to feel guilty about asking God for help.
Feed your faith and your fears will starve.