Faith and Courage

I have been thinking about this for a while: I think that to be truly faithful, you need to be truly courageous.

To be faithful means to do things that may seem to be contrary to what the world is telling us to do. It may mean giving to a charity when the world is telling us to get a new car. It may be giving our time when the world is telling us we need to go to the gym or cart the kids around. It may mean getting the kids involved in helping instead of being in another little league.

Being faithful may mean giving up the high-paying job that pulls all of our time from our family and move to the lower paying job that allows us to eat with our children and read to them at night.

Being faithful may mean standing up to people who would condemn those who have a different sexuality than what is considered "normal." It may mean that some of the heterosexual folks move from saying "it is a shame that there are not equal rights for GLBT people" to actually standing beside us as we make our objections known.

To say you have faith but then go out and hoard, separate, and fight for the trappings of the world is not faith at all. It is solely relying on oneself.

Our works don't give us faith, but as John would say, "Faith without works is dead."