Recognizing The Act Called Faith.

A close friend recently shared with me that he had just launched a new business and required some counsel. He is on a limited fixed salary and has used up his credit cards to set up his business, but right now he has no clients.

He is stating positive affirmations that he is already successful and is free of debt. He wants to know if he should pay his bills by check as they arrive, even though the funds aren't in the bank yet. He decides that these solid actions would demonstrate his faith.

My Answer: Faith is wonderful - and is very critical. There are, in spite of this, circumstances when faith by itself just isn't quite enough.

I told him that he has got to pay more attention to the hard facts instead of faith alone and focus on learning to provide a service that is NEEDED by other people. (Note the emphasis is on what "they" need.) He must remember that although faith is a significant element to creating, the other part of the process is single-minded actions.

Paying your bills with rubber checks is not acting out of faith. It's called hopelessness. When you're fearful about how you're going to cover the debts - or what you're going to eat - or how to keep a roof over your head, your mental outlook is not helpful to creating anything good, let alone bring you a very successful business venture.

We all have to understand that all faith needs that something extra. If you're in an jet plane and it's spinning nose down, you'll first put on your parachute - THEN you can do your affirmations.

There's a expression in the bible "Faith without works is dead", It means exactly that. Belief needs to be fundamentally joined with action. Deliberate action. If it's not, then it's not genuine faith, it's only an attempt to mislead yourself.

So many people feel that they can pray with only faith, and this will keep them from having to make decisions or take specific actions. Nope! That's not the way it works. Actions and faith must be blended together as a synergistic whole and work together. Neither one works efficiently without the other.

And so, while positive thinking is wonderful and absolutely essential, robust positive action is the other complementary ingredient. In short, you'll never pray yourself up a hill without a bit of action.

When you're totally set to take action, with no excuses, then the whole world moves too. You'll start to become aware of the synchronicities, and the unexpected meetings with just the ideal person to help you move forward. Things will start developing with astonishing regularity. But it first took the action on your part to set all that potentiality into motion. ACTION. Alone it's just blind hope.

Some people might call those actions by a different name. In some circumstances it might be called exhilaration, In other instances it might just be hard, hard work. It's all tenacity to do what it takes.. But it sure keeps the action going.

Sometimes the only way to move ahead is to take a roundabout way on the way to your targets. No, it isn't a "wrong turn." It's just yet another way of getting where you're going - apparently a necessary one. Regardless of what it takes.

Just don't stop trying and give up on your dreams whenever life throws you a curve. The important thing is your destination - not the road you take to get you there.

Don't let anxiety derail you on the journey to your goal. Impatience has killed so many dreams because you think it has to happen NOW. It may be right around the corner. All you may need to do is just take a few extra steps - or delay for a few more days ...

It might possibly help to think of your concept of the future as a mountain peak. If we could make a straight beeline to the top, that would be fantastic. What generally happens however, is that we end up going on offshoots with lots of twists and turns while traveling up the mountain. As long as we are turned towards the mountain peak however, we will go ahead and climb - up -up and in due course we WILL reach our goal.

This may seem a bit corny, but it's correct, all the same. I'm living proof as I journeyed through life. I've had many amazing "faith" encounters over the years and yes, occasionally I even considered that faith alone just MIGHT work, but by and large, my most powerful experiences with faith have been paired with hard work.

The simple truth is, it's all part of the mysterious experience called FAITH.