Faith

My faith should affect everything I do.

And yet it doesn’t. Jesus said that, if I had faith the size of a mustard seed, I could move mountains. I tell you, if there is any place that we, as people, need discipline, it’s with our faith. Our faith should be the lense through which we see our finances and our fitness. It should change the way we treat people, the way we approach problems, and the way we use our time.

The first person to come to mind when I think of my faith and the discipline required for outstanding faith (other than Jesus) is my former youth pastor. I haven’t asked him for permission to post his name here, so I hope you don’t mind if I leave a little anonymity to my statements. I met the guy when I was 15 years old and it was really the first time I saw what it meant to be a Christian in today’s world.

You see, I didn’t grow up in a Christian home. I found out about this whole religion deal a bit later in life than most of my friends did. I still remember one of the first times I went to church (as a teenager on his way to getting a driver’s license) and found out about some guy named Moses who led his people out of Egypt. I thought it was weird, yet intriguing.

And now, back to the point. My youth pastor introduced me to a lot of new ideas: reading the Bible, prayer, fasting, journaling, studying, and theology, just to name a few. Since this time, I’ve actually tried out every single spiritual discipline that was introduced to me. I can honestly tell you that, while I was engaged in each one of these disciplines on a regual basis, I felt closer to God than I have at any other point in my life.

That being said, I must be currently engaged in these disciplines, right? If they’re so great, how could you make it through life without them? Well, let me be honest with you; I haven’t really been engaged in many of these disciplines for quite some time. Part of the reason I write to you is to remind myself of the importance of maintaining a healthy spiritual life. I’ve done pretty well with my finances and fitness as of late, but I have, unfortunately, allowed my faith life to fade into the background. You might even say that my successes with finance and fitness have contributed to some amount of failure in my faith. It just seems that I have been so busy pursuing other goals that I haven’t had time for what is really important.

As with so many other perceptions, this simply isn’t true. The reality is that I haven’t been making time to pursue spiritual goals. Since the goal of this blog is to demonstrate how to achieve balance and growth, it’s time for me to explore what it means to balance these three crucial areas of my life. There are obviously some life circumstances that I cannot change and will have to work around, but I also know that I have several opportunities every day that I can choose to use to develop and strengthen my faith. I’ll end this post by restating my opening comment:

My faith should affect everything I do. Now it’s time to make it happen.