The Other Side of Faith

Article for Bethlehem Matrimonial - Aug 2016

During a recent retreat I attended, one of the brothers shared an experience. One evening his 2 year old son developed a fever. They tried to give some medicines but the fever was not subsiding. He tried to call up one of his doctor friends, usually always available on call, but that day he never answered the phone. He then tried contacting a nearby hospital and for some strange reason even after multiple attempts the hospital staff also didn’t answer.

He got really worried about the situation and that’s when he suddenly felt someone talking to him from within. He very clearly heard a question being asked to him. “You’ve tried giving medicines, called the doctor twice and called the hospital multiple times. How many times did you call Me?” That’s when the brother realized that despite being a man of faith, God became the last resort for him in the event of an emergency instead of being the first one to have called for help. He apologized and the rest is history!

How many of you could really relate to this story? It is an interesting observation that I saw him making that day about many of us. Most of us, especially facing adverse situations in life, often tend to resolve the problem ourselves initially in many ways. At last when everything else fails, we turn to our good God for help. Our faith most often becomes the last thing to be taken out and applied in our lives. Ideally it should’ve been the very first weapon we should’ve wielded to fight against the negative forces that cast its shadows in our lives.

Faith plays a crucial role in every form of life, married or otherwise. The complexities increase in your life especially when you share your life with someone and later when you are blessed with children as well. This makes it all the more important to be aware of the fact that it is not just enough to practice your faith, but to live it. Going to a church on a weekly basis or remembering God during bad times are merely practicing your faith. It isn’t that easy to bring in the concept of living the faith in our lives though that’s what we are required to attempt.

One of the easiest things to do in life is to take people or things for granted. Look around and observe how many blessings that we’ve in our lives that we never bothered to be grateful for. Right from our childhood; think about all the good things that happened in your life. Starting from loving parents and siblings; getting good education, landing up in a good job, being blessed with a wonderful partner and kids, leading a healthy life and many more positive aspects in your life. How many of them are we really thankful to God for. We take many of them for granted as if we were supposed to get it!

There are many good things that happened to you in the past and there are many happening now and many more are bound to happen in future. They are all there, not because you worked for it, but because you are blessed to receive it. This blessing requires you to be constantly thankful and the only way to do that is to live in faith. It is quite easy to be complacent and ignore the source of these blessings. It is easier to question your faith especially when you go through bad times. But that’s when you need to remind yourself about the other side of your faith. It is the side where you go across your current boundary of faith and experience the love of your Creator.

Your bad times are similar to those days when you have a fight with your partner. The day when you hug each other and look in the eyes of your sweetheart and say a sorry, you feel the rush of happiness back in your life. The feeling is similar when you get back to your Creator and try to be one with Him in your faith. You won’t even realize how quickly bad times give way for good ones!

May you be blessed to experience the other side of faith and live in the love and peace of our good God!