What is Faith? Generally, faith is the belief, trust and confidence in an idea, person or object. In the religious aspect, Faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the certainty of things not seen- Heb. 11:1. It is the consideration of something to be sure and reliable without having any doubt in your heart. Faith is inherent in everyman, but the tragedy is that men prefer to use their faith negatively by believing that things will turn out bad. Remember, you shall receive that which you believe.
Without faith, man will be drowning in the sea of fear, worry, doubt, confusion and uncertainties. “To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim, you don’t grab hold of the water, because if you do, you will sink and drown, instead you relax and float” – Alan Watts. Before you achieve anything worthwhile, you must believe in your ability, and you must believe that your goals are achievable. We are all uniquely built with the capacity to achieve great feats, often beyond our imagination only if we have faith.
The world is a battle field, and the winners are those who believe they can. “We are twice armed if we fight with faith” – Plato. Success starts from the heart; faith is an essential tool to success. Believing in yourself is the beginning of good things in your life. If you must achieve something worthwhile, you must believe in yourself first and foremost, you must believe that you have the ability to achieve great things.
Success starts from the heart, spreads to the brain and the eyes, then to the entire body.”In Faith, there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadow to blind those who don’t” – Pascal Blaise. It is only those who think and believe they can succeed actually do. We live in a world full of people, people who can build you and people who can pull you down. Under no circumstance should you subject yourself to the limitations others placed on their lives, you have dreams, hopes and aspirations different from theirs. Pursue your dreams with all the vigor and life in you and leave them to the fateful limitations they placed on their own dreams. “Believe in yourself, take on your challenges, and dig deep within yourself to conquer fears. Never let anyone bring you down. You got to keep going” – Chantel Sutherland
You must raise your self – confidence and trust. Self confidence is the belief that you are good at something, that you are reliable and effective; it is the belief in one’s ability and power to accomplish a goal or a task. It is to belief you are competent enough in what you do. It is the cultivation of the can – do attitude. While self confidence breeds faith, lack of it breeds fear. Fear makes us to run from things that are not after us and preventing us from going where we could have won. This does not mean you should not recognize your flaws and weaknesses – we all have weaknesses and flaws, but it does mean you should focus more on your strengths. Recognize your weaknesses, then disregard them, rather focus on your strengths and abilities while you work to improve on your weaknesses. “Enter every activity without giving mental recognition to the possibility of defeat. Concentrate on your strengths, instead of your weaknesses, on your powers instead of your problems” – Paul. J Meyer.
Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, he can achieve so rightly said Napoleon Hill.
Uproot negative forces out of your life!
“The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it” – J.M Barrie
The world presents us with a mixture of forces – positive and negative, in equal measures. The choice and the consequences thereafter are solely ours to bear.
Though we have the will-power to make our own choices in life, the consequences of any choice we make will determine our success or failure. If you desire to live a successful life, then you must choose to live a positive life. Abundant faith, trust, self-confidence, positive attitude, love and hope are some of the positive forces you must make your daily living principles; they add unprecedented energy to your life. Stay very far away from these negative forces – fear, worry, hatred, doubt, distrust, anger, anxiety, procrastination, grudges and envy, they drain you of your energy. Fear, doubt and procrastination are at the top of the causes of failure, procrastination is the putting off to tomorrow what could have been done yesterday. Procrastination is the act of putting off or delaying less pleasurable tasks to a later time in exchange of a more pleasurable task. “Lazy people should learn from the way ants live. They have no leader, chief or ruler, but they store up their food during the summer, getting ready for winter. How long is the lazy man going to lie in bed? When is he ever going to get up? “I’ll just take a short nap” he says; “I’ll fold my hands and rest a while”. But while he sleeps, poverty will attack him like an armed robber” – prov. 6:6-11. One of the greatest tools that have damaged our productivity in this modern age is procrastination; it assassinates any opportunity to be productive that comes to sight. Procrastination is evil, you may delay but time will not. Your life ends moment by moment; as moments pass you are drawing closer to the end of your life.
Negative forces serve only one purpose – to destroy the minds of those who nurture it. There has never been a case where negative forces bring joy and happiness to the minds of those who hold it very dear to themselves. So why keep it?
Fear and worry are the descendants of lack of faith, which ultimately lead to failure in life. Fear is a state of mind that causes one to run, shrink, retreat or hides, mostly induced by a perceived threat, physical or emotional, either in the present or in the future. Fear is part of life but it is a two edged sword that makes us to run both from things that are after us and the things that are not after us, thereby preventing us from achieving our dreams. Though in a way, fear helps us to protect ourselves, but then it could spell our doom also “a brave man is not he who feels no fear, for that is irrational and foolish, but he, whose noble soul its fear subdues, and bravely dares the nature shrinks from” – Joanna Baillie. Fear is what every living entity must feel someday, but if you allow your fear to conquer you, it becomes cowardice which leads to failure. Cowardice is simply the lack of courage to confront challenges, to say or do what is right in the face of adversity, to face opposition and difficulties. Cowardice is the act of running away from trouble, a sign of lack of self – confidence. “A man that flies from his fear may find that he has taken a short cut to meet it” – J.R.R Tolkien. Take that risk! In the scripture (2 Kings 7:3-4), we were told of the story of four lepers that said to each other “why stay here until we die? If we say, “we’ll go into the city”, the famine is there, and we’ll die. And if we stay here, we’ll die. So let’s go over to the camp of Arameans and surrender, if they spare us, we live; if they kill us, then we die” these lepers were faced with three options, none of them looked good enough but one had a probability of survival attached to it – not a certainty remember, but they were driven with the determination to survive, notwithstanding the odds and the likelihood of being killed, they took the risk and moved to where they could find food. Take the risk; don’t let fear control your life, the risk of taking action outweighs the safety of not taking action!
Worry breeds fear, which if not braved may lead to cowardice. Worry is a negative emotion whose only work is to keep us busy throughout the day without getting us to our destination. It is a mental state that always thinks that something bad will happen in any event. It is folly to worry because if you have power over it, then do something and stop worrying, but, if you do not have power over it, why worry? Worrying can only complicate the issues by beclouding your sense of judgment and in turn increasing your anxiety.
Hatred on the other hand is an emotional feeling of intense dislike towards someone, group of persons or an object. Hatred is often accompanied by prejudice which is a preconceived, unfavorable opinion towards a thing, person or group of persons without reason, knowledge or awareness of the facts.
When you hate, you are shortchanging yourself, you are limiting your choices. Hate is like shooting yourself on the leg and when the time to run comes, you can only limp. Hatred can only compound your problems and leaves you begging for help, with none coming.
Human mind harbors two pure opposing forces – negative and positive. Using the universal law of attraction, by focusing on either of them, one brings about negative or positive changes into their life. “As he thinks, so he is; as he continues to think, so he remains” James Allen (As a Man Thinketh. Proverbs 23:7 further stressed that “For as he thinks within himself, so he is. He says to you, “Eat and drink!” But his heart is not with you” whatever a man consistently thinks about, is what he will be. You cannot be positive in your life when your mind is negative; we are, but the products of our thoughts.
Conclusion:
Cherish your visions, cherish your ideals. Cherish the music that stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the loneliness that drapes your purest thoughts, for out of them will grow all delightful conditions, all heavenly environment, of these, if you but remain true to them your world will at last be built
Jane Allen.
