And he said unto them, Where is your faith? – Luke 8:25.
Where, What and How About Faith
We may not know that everyone in this world has faith. We were born with it. When we were young, we mixed our faith with the letters of the alphabet and learned to combine words. We listened and imitated our parents and grandparents’ words and learned to speak. Everything we currently have in our minds, we believed. Why, because of our faith. Faith makes ideas and feeling stick in our minds. It is like the thought and feeling glue. Faith can be our best friend or our worse enemy. If we mixed our faith with the anger and frustration that our parent taught us, guess what, we have the same words and feelings in our minds and they work! However, if our parents showed us love and kindness and we believed in those words and actions, then we know how to show love and kindness to others. So how can we use faith to help us? We can start thinking different ways. We can start to believe that we do not have the right to speak angry words to another person, ever. This changes the thoughts of anger toward someone else. However, we have to believe to make the change and consistently don’t let it work. It is as easy and as difficult as that!
Story
I knew a great woman her name was Mattie Lou. She lived next to a church in a small Missouri town named Moberly. Mattie took guests into her home that would travel long distances to attend her church. Mattie always loved to talk with her guests and show them great hospitality. I know in many conversations that I had with Mattie in regards to difficulties in my life, she would tell me, “Honey, don’t believe those thoughts that are causing you these problems. Stop mixing your faith with them. Mattie has been gone from this earth for
many years, but in difficult times I still remember her voice saying, “Don’t believe those thoughts, don’t mix your faith with them.” And guess what, when I don’t mix my faith with them, I don’t have them.
My Life’s Application
Mattie’s words can live within our minds just like when our parents or teachers have shown us how to be kind and loving. When difficulties spring up and we get emotionally stirred up, we can ask ourselves why? What was I thinking? If we can find the thoughts, like “That individual was intentionally trying to put me down,” or “That person doesn’t love me,” or “It is all my fault, I can never do anything right or to please them”, Mattie should be waiting at our door saying, Do you know what that person actually is thinking? You don’t know, so why are you mixing your faith and believing these lying thoughts that are causing your problems. Oh yes, Mattie, I love hearing your voice and my reply is, “I don’t need to be mixing my faith with these thoughts. I honestly don’t know what somebody else thinks. Why don’t I give them the benefit that they would not think this way?” Imagine, if I changed my thinking to believing that I cannot know what another person is thinking, then all the thought that tell me what bad things someone is doing to me, are no longer believable. My world opens u to not judging this person as rotten, but to loving that person, showing kindness to that person and maybe finding a friend in that person. This is the positive side of faith. My faith is making a change in me and a beautiful change in love, kindness, understanding and joy through mixing my faith in a new way of thinking. So as Mattie would say, “Be aware of what thoughts we are believing,” If we feel ourselves going downhill, it’s time to pull Mattie’s words into our minds and start challenging what are thoughts have I mixed my faith with?
Comments(5)
Linda says:
August 21, 2020 at 9:27 pmI really like this concept! I have never thought about it this way before “Faith makes ideas and feeling stick in our minds. It is like the thought and feeling glue.” I am going to try to be more selective about what thoughts and feelings I give my faith to!
Janese says:
November 29, 2020 at 2:15 pmThank-you for your post Linda,
That phrase ‘Faith is like the glue in our minds’ shows how valuable faith can be. However, without discernment, if Mom and Dad told us ideas like, ‘it s only a little white lie,’ then guess what, those ideas, beside the good ideas, get stuck in our minds. That is why Jesus used the parable that our minds are like the fields with both good seeds and tares sown in them (because they got glued in). There is a time of harvest; when we have the discernment and knowledge to distinguish between the weeds (tares) and the good plants (good seeds), and with the help of the angels (reapers), we can unglue (cast away) the tares and harvest the good plants (good seeds). What an opportunity for changing our lives. I know most of us have something inside that we have always wished we could change and never thought we would have the opportunity. Well, now is the time. Happy harvestingJanese
Janese says:
November 29, 2020 at 2:08 pmThank-you for your post Linda,
That phrase ‘Faith is like the glue in our minds’ shows how valuable faith can be. However, without discernment, if Mom and Dad told us ideas like, ‘it s only a little white lie,’ then guess what, those ideas, beside the good ideas, get stuck in our minds. That is why Jesus used the parable that our minds are like the fields with both good seeds and tares sown in them (because they got glued in). There is a time of harvest; when we have the discernment and knowledge to distinguish between the weeds (tares) and the good plants (good seeds), and with the help of the angels (reapers), we can unglue (cast away) the tares and harvest the good plants (good seeds). What an opportunity for changing our lives. I know most of us have something inside that we have always wished we could change and never thought we would have the opportunity. Well, now is the time. Happy harvestingJanese
Linda Bieg says:
November 29, 2020 at 2:16 pmThanks for your reply!
Laurie Oliver says:
May 9, 2022 at 10:59 amGreat message. It’s very helpful to remember that in order for unjust thoughts to stick in our minds, we have to believe them, or another way of saying that is to mix our faith with them. Thinking this way helps us all to grow discernment for keeping our minds clear of bad thoughts. Lots of God’s wisdom was working through Mattie in those words. Thanks for sharing!