How can you know how strong your faith is?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Pentecost2005
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
P

Pentecost2005

Guest
If someone asked you how strong your faith is, or how much faith you have, how would you answer them? More to the point, how would YOU know the answer? What does it mean to have a lot of faith? And what is the epistemology of faith?
 
40.png
Pentecost2005:
If someone asked you how strong your faith is, or how much faith you have, how would you answer them? More to the point, how would YOU know the answer? What does it mean to have a lot of faith? And what is the epistemology of faith?
Click to expand...
Put it this way. You’re a human. You have little to no faith. After all, if we had faith the size of a mustard seed we could move mountains!
 
You know a persons faith by the works that they do. Faith without works is no faith at all. It’s by our persevering in great difficulties , trials etc that we show what sort of faith we have. Hope this helps.
 
40.png
Pentecost2005:
If someone asked you how strong your faith is, or how much faith you have, how would you answer them? More to the point, how would YOU know the answer? What does it mean to have a lot of faith? And what is the epistemology of faith?
Click to expand...
Pentecost, I am afraid you won’t like my answer but I will give it anyway. Please don’t take it the wrong way…
Knowing just how much faith you have is not something I would advocate that you pray for. I can tell you that I have been blest by God so much considering how little faith I consider myself to have. Not very long ago I learned about having faith, it was a hard humbling lesson. You see I had everything I thought that I could possibly want in life; a husband, 3 wonderful children, friends, a good carreer doing work that I loved, parents that raised me right…etc… Then my dad died, and I thanked God that I had a chance to tell him that I loved him before he died. After that my husband decided that he no longer believed in God and he decided to become a pagan priest. I prayed for him to no avail, A couple months later, he decided that he didn’t love me and never had. The day he left I prayed for the strength to be a good mom and that my husband would find his way back to God(I discovered the remote control and found EWTN). Well, we got divorced and he still thinks he is a pagan priest and I still pray daily to our Blessed Mother to help me be a good mom. A couple months after he left I got a letter in the mail from the IRS saying that a return was being garnished to pay back child support for the wife he “forgot” to tell me he had (and forgot to divorce, Oh Lord, I was the other woman) before me. About a month after that my great carreer ended when I got “downsized” So there I was, a woman with 3 kids and no means of support. I had nothing except faith left. It was a very humbling time for me since I had always equated my self-worth with my marriage, kids and job. I prayed constantly, determined to learn and also to set a good example for my children. It was not an easy time, but oh the lessons I learned!!! What I didn’t have we either did without or I prayed for help with. When a bill was due that I couldn’t pay, when we had no food in the house, when I wasn’t sure what the right thing to do was…I prayed. I told my kids that God would provide, and I even believed it(I believe it even more now if that is possible). Sure enough, we didn’t starve (although we didn’t have an abundance), money to pay the bills seemed to just arrive or appear as I needed it most, but most of all, because I shared my prayers with my kids, they saw the miracle of faith before them. Things eventually got better for us. It was a long rough road, but the joy we shared in knowing that God had provided for us at our greatest need was awesome. I am so very grateful that I learned this lesson about faith. I do admit, now when I pray for a need I ask to be shown in a “gentle” way. God has never failed me, my husband did, I failed me too, my friends failed me and my country failed me in some ways, but God never has! As for the prayers to be a good mom…they will never end as long as I am a mom. But my kids are turning out quite wonderfully despite my human failings.
 
Dear Blest One,

What an awe-inspiring witness to your faith! I see where you got your “user name.” My story is fairly similar, except that after losing my husband, my home, and child support – I lost even my three children, for a time. These trials will surely stretch our faith in a huge hurry! It shows whether or not we even have a smidgeon of it, which we can never ascertain in times of prosperity.

The beauty of it was, that my third child was the instrument God used to turn the whole ugly situation completely around, and they were all returned to my nest. It was amazing to see how God worked it all out, for in my humanness, I could never have anticipated this incredible outcome.

It is best, I have learned to leave all circumstances in His providential hand, with complete abandonment to Him. If we try to work out our own deliverance, very often we just muddle things up and make it harder for God.

In spite of your severe trials, Blest One, I believe God has given you far more than you ever dreamed of in your faith life! Thanks for sharing!

:love: Carole
 
40.png
BlestOne:
Pentecost, I am afraid you won’t like my answer but I will give it anyway. Please don’t take it the wrong way…
Click to expand...
I don’t understand why you would say that. I wasn’t “looking” for any answer in particular.
 
As the above poster demonstrate with their stories, we know how strong our faith is by what we do when our faith is tested. Anything short of that, is just a guess.
 
Live long enough, and I promise you… you will be tested…
 
It seems as though the question can be answered two ways: “how can you know how strong your faith is?” can pertain to how loyal you are to the faith-how faithful you are to it, or it can mean how much faith do you manifest when the rubber hits the road and obstacles enter the picture which may entail your doubting that what God said is true. Well, for the first interpretation I would say this; I would know how strong my faith is when I’m called upon to uphold the good, the beautiful, and the true even when I’m the only one professing it. If I’m in a situation where the Faith is being derided or misinterpreted, then if I’m silent, I know that I’m my faith is only as strong as it makes me comfortable. When I’m uncomfortable than my loyalty to the faith is weakened. Now if it’s the second interpretation then I must say actually the same thing could be said. We would know how strong our faith is by how well we bring it forth during times of personal trial. Do we toss it overboard in times of trial and tribulation or do we internalize it and act on it? We know how strong our faith is by how much we move our faith from our heads (intellectualizing it, which keeps it in the realm of the abstract) to our hearts (internalizing it and acting on it, because it is now real and tangible for us). If we think of our faith as Incarnational, hence real, and palatable, then we can muster up the strength – through the grace of the Holy Spirit-- to face what comes our way. And in so doing, count it all joy.
 
One correct response would be, “if I need to know, then my faith is too weak.”
 
Dear friend

To me the reply to your question is:

How can you know how strong your faith is?

TRUST and in trusting God to PERSEVERE

By perseverance in faith, hope, charity, mercy, works, deeds, prayer, limitless love. Perseverance in adversity, trial, injustice, attack, suffering, loss, betrayal, persecution, hatred, when all seems lost, when darkness closes around us, through doubts, tiredness, apathy, uncertainty, injury, loss of health, facing fear…the list is endless, but it is trust and perseverance and the final analysis at death is only when we will truly know how great a faith we have possessed; when we can answer, ‘Lord I have kept the faith and I fed you, I gave you drink, I clothed you and I loved you and have been kind to you, I did this to you and to the very least of these’ and He says ‘Amen, Come, the Kingdom of heaven is yours’.

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa
 
Thank you Joysong…we do indeed sound like we went though alot of the same things.

Pentecost, I meant no offense! I just meant that sometimes that old saying “Be careful what you wish for” can bite you in the behind. I had to find out the grace of faith the hard way, and though it was very educational and good for me, it was very difficult. I would spare anyone the pain I went through. Obviously Joysong went through it too(God bless her). Of all the things that I had to do, I think the hardest was empying 4 cans of condensed vegetable beef soup into a pot and telling the kids it was stew (I didn’t add the water). To this day I still cannot bring myself to eat or serve vegetable beef soup.
 
We do not need to know how strong our faith is. All we need to do is plead like abject beggars for the grace to receive God’s gift of faith to meet whatever may confront us in the mercy of God.
 
40.png
BlestOne:
Pentecost, I meant no offense! I just meant that sometimes that old saying “Be careful what you wish for” can bite you in the behind.
Click to expand...
I wasn’t offended. 🙂 Just wondering.

I’m more concerned about those times when I seem to resist grace.
 
Faith is the theological virtue by which we believe everything God has revealed and all that is taught from this revelation by Holy Mother Church for our good. Our hope becomes all the more stronger through difficulties by embracing more this faith. A deeper study of our faith, the Saints, papal encyclicals, reading the Cathecism and fervent prayer(truly a struggle)and so forth, doing these things will allow God to open doors of deeper understanding…increasing our desire to be like Him. Ask and you shall recieve,seek and you shall find,knock and the door will be opened. This three- fold progressive statement of faith of Our Lord speaks of these things and cuts to the heart of His Mercy.

peace and love
 
PuzzleAnnie,
I would hope that by the grace of God that I would be willing. I really don’t know for sure since I have never been in that situation before. I know I love my Lord with all my heart and I pray that if he chooses to use me as a witness through persecution or death, that my children would be grown or at least not be devastated at the loss of their mom.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top