Seeing is Believing . . .
But faith is blind.
People often get very confused about ‘faith’ and ‘belief’ very often thinking that they are the same thing.
They’re not.
Most people’s beliefs are based on ‘evidence’ – which may of course be true or false. Now by ‘false’ I don’t necessarily mean untrue or incorrect, I mean unclear or unproven or maybe just partial.
Faith however doesn’t need any ‘evidence’, it doesn’t need to be proven. When we have true faith in something, we really don’t care about any ‘evidence’ that is presented or indeed whether or not there is any evidence at all about what we have faith in.
Faith doesn’t require the services of Kipling’s six ‘men’ – who, what, why, how, where and when. If we have faith in something we just don’t need to know any of that.
Belief is different.
Our beliefs are built up over time from what we’ve seen, heard, read, been told, researched, experienced for ourselves and so on.
Which is why most people have different beliefs.
Which is why two people can have totally different beliefs about the same thing.
Which is why, because those beliefs have been generated out of our own experiences and out of our ‘perceptions’ of what others have done, said or written, many of those beliefs are ‘wrong’.
Especially some of the beliefs we have about ourselves.
Essentially our beliefs are based on our level of understanding of a situation or concept. They may be about something real and physical, or virtual and philosophical.
Some beliefs are held by a lot of people, some by a few.
Many people have ‘opposing’ beliefs – different understanding about the same thing.
And most of us have opposing beliefs about ourselves. We have beliefs that limit our ability to progress, to change, to do all sorts of things. We often believe that we ‘can’t’ do some of the things that other people can do.
These ‘limiting beliefs’ derived from perfectly reasonable perceptions and understandings – at the time they were formed – are often no longer relevant. Bu they’re still there.
The answer is faith.
We must have faith in ourselves.
We must have faith that, come what may, we will achieve whatever we want to be, do and have in the future.
Without having to employ Kipling’s six serving men. Most of all, the one beginning with ‘H’.
Worrying about how we’re going to achieve something undermines our faith that we will do it and that ‘worrying’ is kicked off by those limiting beliefs we have about ourselves and our abilities.
We can of course have faith in our beliefs – we can be certain that some of them are ‘right’.
But which ones?
Having faith in a ‘belief’ means accepting it regardless of any evidence (or lack of evidence) either for or against. It can be dangerous – especially to us.
I’m off to examine what I believe about myself, get rid of those limiting beliefs, and build up my faith in me.
How about you?
Enjoy