Our Faith

After many years of walking through doors of different religious institutions, I can remember the word faith being used many times. But, the term faith was being used as a measuring tool pertaining to how well I was accepting the things I was being told!
Looking back, I can’t remember ever hearing faith being used in reference to how I believed in MYSELF! I believe, and remember that this is Bob speaking; if we don’t have faith in ourselves we will find it difficult to have a “true” faith in anything else. I know that having faith in me is important to My Father in Heaven because My Friend told me so!
In my prison ministry, I have held sobbing grown men in my arms while they told me that they were nothing more than a piece of junk! Some of them were just waiting around to die but, after what other religious leaders had told them, they were scared to death of dieing!
On each visit I would stress how important each person was to me. I would also make a point of telling them that my God did not create junk. And, if they were that important to God how could they consider themselves junk?
On the outside, I have had strangers walk up to me and tell me that their lives were over. That they were headed straight to Hell! That their religious leader had told them that there was no redemption for them! I want you to take a minute and cook that one over! Their leader had told them “there was NO HOPE for them!!!” This in the name of religion! This sounds like to me; someone without faith trying to pull others into their same unhappy world with them! Maybe, like someone wanting to play God!
It baffles me, how in the name of religion, a person can be convinced to strap on a bomb and then walk into a group worshiping out of the same book and detonate that bomb! Could that bomber have any faith in himself? Where do they find people like that? They say it is being done in the name of God! I cannot believe that they have ever spoken with my loving God that speaks with me!
Along with faith in us I have found a few other things that walk hand in hand. Things like; pride, self-respect, and standards. I’ve also found a few things that can easily turn the milk sour. Things like; ego, intolerance, and controlling.
Faith in our self is not trying to create someone of our self that we are not. Faith in our self is taking the person God has given us and doing the best we can with it.
In our walk of life, where ever we go, one step at a time is how we get there. And, if that first step is faith in our self, all the rest of our steps are much easier!