Experience Faith

"Transforming My Experience"

So we have talked about Renewing Our Mind, Redeeming Our Time, and Deepening Our Relationships, now we will dig a little deeper into the transformation process and what's really going on in and around us. This transformation can effect every part of our lives, home, work, family, friends and so on. We know now that the positive light that shines at our core is defined by our attitude, our spirit and our principle and we take this with us everywhere we go. During the transformation process, you will be doing what's called, working toward your sweet spot. First, you will study, then practice, then apply, then improve. We have all heard the phrase, "rome wasn't built in a day", well, this is true. A great transformation takes planning, laying of a foundation, disciplined building and structure and most importanly, maintenance and upkeep after it's done; a little phrase I like to coin, "maintain and elevate."

 With honor comes great pride, not the unhealthy kind that makes people think you're a pompous jerk, but the other kind of pride that brings warm gratitude and satisfaction in knowing that you have accomplished and achieved a job well done. There's something to be said about fulfilling your call to work. It develops and strengthens a passion inside of you that says, hey, I'm actually good at something and while my skill, talent or trade brings a product, good or service to another person, it brings me personal satisfaction in knowing that I have worked with all my heart, to serve others honorably, not to serve myself selfishly. If you feel that you are making a difference, that's the good in you shining through!

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There are several tools out there to help us become bigger, better, stronger and sharper at what we do. Another way to transform your experiences is through adversity. Not only do we need to be happy in our times of accomplishments, but find the silver lining in our time of suffering, also. We can do this because we know that with every low point, bottom barrel fall we take in life, that means there's only one direction to go, UP! We fall down, but we get up, hopefully, wiser and more prepared than before the fall. 

Suffering produces perseverance; perseverance strengthens character; character ensues hope.

Resignation says: that's just the way it is. 

Despair says: it never gets better.

But hope says: the future I desire is coming and hope does not disappoint us when your goals are realistic, attainable and you are productively applying the basic rule: 

SEE IT - BELIEVE IT - BECOME IT.

You see, the "sweet spot" occurs when your skills and your challenges meet.

There will be low points where you feel "grumpy" but hopefully in the end, you will look back and smile and reap the reward of a job well done. 

 

Faith. What is it? Something religious fanatics made or...is it an elemental part of the unseen world that exists in every person? Simply put, Faith is confidence or trust in a person, entity or thing. When you believe something to be true without any evidence, that's also considered an act faith. You see, you don't have to be religious to have faith. The power to believe is in all of us. Your background, culture or religion has very little, if any, to do with it. You either believe something, or you don't. It's your choice. Not the choice of your parents, teachers, society or church.

Just like Christians believe the Bible to be the Absolute Word of God or the Muslims believe the Qur'an to be the Absolute Word of Mohammad, anytime you put your full stock and support into the something or someone that you are sure is telling you the truth, if you truly believe them, then you have Faith.

Exercising faith in your daily life means applying them like principles: teaching, revocation, correction and training. If you are part of something in your home or work life and the leader of that group tells you that something is true, if you believe it, then you apply it as something you have learned and can teach others. You can revoke negativity from those who do not agree with your views and your ways in a peaceful way, no need to fight and argue and yell just because someone disagrees with your beliefs. They believe what they believe for a reason and so do you. It is not your job to convince them that your way is better. Exercising faith means correcting your behaviors, attitude and conversations by moving to the positive middle ground and utilizing whatever experience you're going through as part of your training for something else you may go through in the future. 

 You will also find by applying these basic daily principles of your faith that you will have become somewhat unique. How? Well, consider this. You trust the source of your teaching, enough to revoke anything or anyone that tries to take that teaching away from you or make you believe what you think is true, really is not. You have found a way to separate truth from lies and this makes people who lie to you, obviously, very angry. But you don't fight with them, because you are trained to be different. You are unique. Instead of fighting and spreading their lies, you stand firm as the odd one out and do just the opposite of the crowd. You lean on the truth and walk away. You see, when you have faith in the truth, you have nothing to prove and it is not necessary to defend truth. Truth defends itself. 

Take the Bible for example. Those who have faith in the Bible believe that All scripture is breathed out of, inspired by, and prophesied by God through the Holy Spirit and then into humans. In that order. They believe the Bible is unique. It is the only collection of literature in human history that is a composition of 40 authors; different social and economic backgrounds; different geographic circumstances; 3 different continents; 3 different languages with ONE theme; ONE relevance; UNIVERSAL circulation and a literary CHARACTER unlike any other of its kind. Thematic Unity explores who is God, who is man, what is their relationship? What is the preparation, fulfillment and impact of Jesus Christ? Then Relevance looks at every culture, century, age group, and walk of life. Circulation of this book is #1 as the most translated text in history at 2,287 languages and counting. And then literary character: it's lyrical - epic - dramatic - historic - philosophical - entertaining - thrilling - and mystic! And the same can be said about the Qur'an or the Torah or the Assyria. 

Faith is a part of our moral character. All of the ancient texts mentioned above, among several others I'm sure you can think of, speak repeatedly of faith and moral character. Moral character is established through timeless collision of current, cultural reality with absolute, moral truth. Moral truth is founded on accuracy. An accuracy that says I am prophetic, historical and scientific, all at the same time. Why does it matter? It's one thing to know truth, and another thing to apply it. Truth is the way things really are. Not our version or interpretation of it. There is truth in nature, there is truth in reason, there is truth in creation.There is truth in history. There is truth in words.

 Truth carries authority.When you are steadfast in truth, you are in a position of irrefutable, undeniable, incontestable, authority. Now this does not mean that there won't be people who will not question, disagree, argue, fight over and try to change your truth. Just the opposite. Faith leads to moral fortitude which leads to authority which leads to haters! There will always be people who do not want you to believe in anything, have any moral principle, have any direction to do better in your life and want you to go against the grain. Remember, it is up to you. You choose whether to lead or follow. You choose whether to put your good foot forward or fall behind and wither away with the haters. 
Stand tall in your faith and know that you are doing the right thing based on truth and authority. Don't let anyone take that away from you. 

for a good read and more info on faith and truth, check out: