Fear and Faith are on my mind this week. We went over these topics in our Science of Mind Foundations class and we are speaking about them on Sunday. It’s also Halloween. What a coincidence? Boo!

It is not easy to define words that are feelings. It is written, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for…” Someone said they substitute the word “assurance” for substance. Still it is a feeling.

I can only explain Faith as an energy. It is different from a belief. It is a certainty that all is well. Faith, for me, means that I know that no matter what is going on in my life that there is a greater, loving impulse behind it. I am safe. I might not know what the future holds, but I know that it holds me in wholeness and goodness.

See, what I mean? They are just words and unless you can feel them, they have no meaning. Someone recently told me that she couldn’t feel abundance. She understood it intellectually, but the feeling wasn’t there. My only answer to this is “stop trying to feel things.” We must put our words and theories into action if we want to feel them. Experience is the greatest teacher and brings us all our answers. We must live the things we say we believe.

So, back to Faith. If you are unsure what Faith is begin with trust. I’m not talking about trusting other people, but trusting yourself. Start something that you’ve been putting off and trust yourself to finish it. Then, make the decision to finish it. You will finish it and you will begin to build faith in the Principle within you that moves you.

Faith in the unknown is the biggest test of faith. We really do not know what is going to happen, but we can trust that we have everything required in every moment to be in any experience. We can have faith that we can meet our challenges and turn them into opportunities. Again, we can’t just sit around thinking about it; we must take it into practice, if we want to feel it.

At the end of the General Summary in the Science of Mind, Dr. Holmes wrote, “In conclusion, what the world needs is spiritual conviction, followed by spiritual experience. I would rather see a student of this Science prove its Principle than to have him repeat all the words of wisdom that have every been uttered.”

We are at a time in our history and evolution that requires a lot of faith. We need to find spiritual solutions. We need to have conviction that all is well. We need to act from a place of faith and conviction. So, I invite us all to rise from our chairs and all our thinking and thinking and start living these Principles we say we believe in. I invite us to have Faith that we know what is ours to do in every moment and then to move forward and do it. It is true,

“Faith without works is dead.”  It’s dead because if you don’t put your faith into practice, you are actually proving you don’t have Faith. You won’t know if you have it if you don’t start using it.

Love and Aloha,

Rev. Rita