Article Highlights:

  • Do you need faith?
  • Trust made easy
  • What do you believe in?

faithDear Faithful Traveler of the way,

Do you have faith? Do you need faith? Is it useful? What role might it play? How does it really work? Faith in what, about what, to what? These are all interesting questions regarding faith. Recently I ruminated about faith and was given a model for understanding and working with faith in our lives: faith as North Star. In the process of this dialogue with Spirit, I wrote things down and ended up with a few paragraphs about it that might interest you.

Faith, Trust and Belief

Religion has taught many of us that we need to have Faith, making it something one has to try to have or apply or acquire. Which makes it all a little hit or miss in a way, faith being dependent on our effort or will power or on our ability to apply it at any given moment, and so forth.

I wondered recently if Faith might be more like Love or Peace which are a given, something built in that we can call on or access. It was suggested in my meditation that faith might be both more fathomable and more useful when understood as a NorthStar. The North Star is there, in the sky. We don’t have to try to get it up there, it already is. We can look to it whenever we wish.

And being where it is we know the North Star is not a destination in its self – we don’t try to achieve it, or arrive there. It is a navigational aid that indicates direction, isn’t it? So one doesn’t try to achieve North Star or practice the North Star, one takes their direction from it. And one uses its orientation relative to another orientation, their desired destination. So one uses the North Star to affirm or correct course.

On a spiritual path, the journey itself is not fully known but the destination is… the destination is the return home to the true Self, the Heart of Love, realizing who we really are, pieces of GodLight in human form. So one uses Faith as our orientation relative to that, the return home. We call on our faith – our North Star – to assist in holding that orientation, to affirm or correct our course and to know the way Home. And Home is where? Within us.

So Faith is directional, it shows where to look. And where is that? To the heavens? “The heavens” is our metaphor for within. Having faith means “I look within” when fears beset me, rather than project outward. It means I will first look within when the world feels unsafe, when I’m confused. I will let that which is within me relate – most primarily – to what is outside of me. Now we have a natural movement or rhythm between faith and mind and life, a movement that can have rhythm and flow rather than being forced or efforted.

As currently understood, when we say “have Faith” we must ask, “Faith in what?” Faith in ……. Fill in the blank. This can go astray when we place a belief in the blank. Faith “in what I believe in” removes Faith from being a North Star and limits it to a belief. A belief is too circumstantial to serve as a true guide. Beliefs change, they come and go.

Now, with Faith as a North Star, let’s bring in the matter of Trust – they are often considered a pair, aren’t they? So let’s ask the same question of Trust that we asked regarding Faith.

Trust in… Trust in what? Like with Faith, Trust is not very elevated nor is it stable if we trust in things and people and ideas. We can learn to trust others more or less as needed. We can learn to discern better, be more trustworthy ourselves… we can learn much from trust in these contexts, yes. But in the spiritual sense, to elevate trust, what we place our trust in must be the Light within. The Life within. And the return home. We reference our faith which points us within to our own Light.

So if Faith is like our NorthStar pointing us inward, then Trust is our mariner’s action in that regard. Faith in the Journey Inward. And Trust in what we find there, the Light of Being.

Faith, Trust and Belief. These three are often mentioned together. Where does Belief come in? Belief in… what? Surely not a political party or a singular religious view or idea. And surely not opinions about this or that thing that forms our many beliefs.

How do we elevate Belief? The scriptures speak of “believing All Things.” All things? Can you feel the magnitude of Belief in that context? What can that possibly mean? What is the only thing that is All Things? This, to me speaks of belief in the Light, the Love, the Power of that which is God.

Thinking in that way about Faith, Trust and Belief can support us along the way. We can move forward calling on our Faith by looking within, remembering the journey Home. We can Trust in what we find there, the Light of Life, having Belief in all things – the inner light and power of that which is called God.

Faith=North Star, the inward direction. Trust=the Action, trust in the Light within. Belief=the Power that creates Expansion. Something to think about more from time to time.
Much love along your way,
~ X💚Mayet

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