What do the words faith and belief mean to you? Some people feel they mean the same thing. Maybe they do, but please allow me to show you a different perspective.
I was on a training call a while back and the speaker told us a story about her son. They had gone out to eat and while they were there, her son asked for money to play a game so he could win a toy. The game was one of those machines filled with toys where you position the claw over the toy you want, or think you can get, and push the button. The claw drops, then lifts up and opens over the chute. If there is a toy in its grip, you get it; if not you get nothing. They gave the boy some money and he ran off to play his game. They child was gone for awhile and came back with three toys! How very surprising it would have been for a small child to get one toy, let alone three! This young boy was so excited and confided to his mom that it was extra exciting because he had only thought he could get two toys!
There are many facets of this story. This is a child who clearly has not been taught what he cannot do. This is a child who looked at the situation, decided he believed he could get two toys and took action. This is a child who, upon achieving his goal, kept playing the game to achieve more. Have you ever stopped your own momentum because you had achieved your goal? I can tell you for sure I have. Just like us, he also could have run back to his parents and crowed about his victory. Instead, he kept at it and achieved more than his original goal.
This is a great example of belief. This little boy wanted something and it didn’t even occur to him that he couldn’t have it. He BELIEVED he could take the correct action in order to achieve his goal.
To me, faith is between me and God. Whatever higher power you believe in is fine for you, but for me I deliberately choose to acknowledge God as God. When I set out a goal for myself, with no obvious path to achievement; I am exercising my FAITH that God will prevail for me. When I think of having faith, it means believing in divine or universal power intervening on my behalf. Having faith also means knowing God will protect me when I am uncertain of my surroundings so fear and worry have no value.
There are many things in day to day life where we exercise our faith in something seemingly independent from God. For myself, I know down inside my present heart, I have faith that the order of life, set out by God, will prevail on my behalf today.
From my perspective, belief is in me and faith is when I must leave the result up to God.
