Trusting Faith

Aman Singh · #1 (**permalink**) 22-Oct-2006, 19:24 PM

Trust is such a personal thing. Faith is even more so. Whether you’re sending out your prayers and intentions or falling in love, trust and faith are intertwined. Trust says that you logically know everything will turn out for the best. Faith says that on an intuitive emotional level you sense that everything will turn out for the best. One’s in your head, the other’s in your heart. The same, but different. When someone or something breaks our trust, it can be rebuilt or re-earned. However, when someone or something breaks our faith, a piece of us is never quite the same. When you have both faith and trust, then it’s easy to move forward confidently, but if you only have one or the other, it can be very difficult to take that first step.

You can trust with your mind but not have faith to back it up. For example, you can know that your teammates or coworkers have all the best intentions to finish a project or to win at a contest together. However as much as you trust that they will give it their all, you may not have faith that they’ll actually accomplish that goal. Perhaps they aren’t qualified, trained, practiced, or self-disciplined enough. When you begin the task, a piece of you will hold back from being completely enthusiastic because you’re guarding yourself from the probability that despite all their effort, they’ll likely fail anyway. Not a fun place to be in and definitely not a productive one.

Can you have faith without trust? Wouldn’t logic override intuition and destroy the faith you have in someone or something? Think of all the times that you sat there with complete faith that you’d win the lottery but then your logical mind didn’t really trust it, so you’d go into work even though you were pretty sure that you owned that winning lottery ticket. That entire industry is based on the idea that people have a deep faith that they’re going to strike it rich. Logically, we tell ourselves that we should play it safe and keep our day jobs because deep down we don’t trust it.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/spiritual-articles/14400-trusting-faith.html

Following a spiritual calling can be a very difficult path because of these two elements. You can have complete faith that your guardian angels and spirit guides meant what they said when they told you to go do this work, but you may not trust them to catch you if you fall flat on your face a few times. You may have faith that you can do the job, but not trust that the world wants to receive your gift. You may trust that you’re on the right path for you, but question your faith in weird little spirit voices that whisper to you. Many would tell you this is the reason that it’s so important to have blind faith in some form of a God or Goddess.

Personally, I hate the entire concept of blind faith. Nothing bugs me more about most traditional religions then the part where you have to believe these seemingly outrageous stories without question or you’re doomed to some form of hell. Most religions teach that if you don’t practice blind faith, then you won’t be favored by their version of God. It makes absolutely no sense to me. Why would a god require such a thing? If it’s really an almighty magical amazing powerful creator of life type, then they would naturally be so impressive that the ‘blind’ part of ‘blind faith’ wouldn’t be necessary. In my opinion, only insecure dictators require blind faith. Personalities that are secure in themselves and in their abilities don’t require such things of others. No, I’m not saying that God or any other celestial type should have to prove themselves in order for us to have faith in them. I’m just saying that it seems really insecure and ridiculous for any sort of a god to even waste their time on such concepts.

Many people who are following spiritual callings are struggling with the ability to maintain their sense of undying faith and complete trust that they are spiritually protected and looked after and that they are indeed in the right place at the right time doing the right thing. The whole nature of the thing is so unsettling, how could you not entertain some fear and doubt on occasion? Add to that the diversity of religious belief systems, society’s judgmental attitudes towards people who don’t share their same belief systems, and the emotional and financial struggles that often accompany spiritual callings, and it’s no wonder that we end up losing our faith or our trust that everything is definitely going to turn out for the best.

You can’t do great spiritual work if you’re running on autopilot not really believing in what you’re doing. The first thing you need to do is to reconnect with your faith. Take some time to pray, meditate, walk in the trees, make sand castles on the beach, or whatever it is that you do to connect with the heavens. When you find the connection again, then you will find your deep spiritual faith again. If need be, talk to your god. Ask questions, argue, laugh, sing, or just listen. If the faith doesn’t come back, then stop doing the spiritual work you were originally asked to do. If your faith is truly gone, then your work is no longer ‘spiritual,’ is it? Once you’ve reconnected with your own undying faith, then remind your logical mind of all the times you were so foolish as to lose faith. Run a few tests to double check that you and your guardian angels are in sync again. Ask for confirmation signs. Ask to manifest something weird and unusual. Eventually, your trust in heaven will return. Once your logical mind is again on track, then get back to your spiritual work. The world needs your gift as much as you need to give it.