The meat and potatoes of my life.

There are three basic ideas concerning faith. One very popular thought is that faith is an excuse, an easy way out. Faith is what people fall back on when they're too afraid or tired to run their own lives. Another very popular idea is that faith is giving up the reins and trusting God to steer you through life, around all of the nasty stuff and straight into the bright blue yonder. Most people don't know what faith really is.

"Faith is the constant assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. It is the belief in things that we cannot yet see."

I live a life of faith. True faith, not fluff faith. And I don't know much, but I can tell you this. Living in faith is the scariest and hardest thing I have ever done and will ever do, and it is the most rewarding. God's plan for you is not like the bulleted grocery list that hangs on your fridge. There is no point A, followed by point B, and so on. God's plan is a purpose that he has made especially for you, and you are a person made specifically to fulfill that purpose. How you discover and meet that purpose is all up to you. You don't even have to go anywhere near that purpose if you don't want to. Free will.

Faith is discovering and developing the strengths that God has equipped you with. Faith is finding your passion and pursuing it. Faith is knowing that good will come out of bad. Most importantly, faith is not avoiding the scary stuff. Faith is challenging it. "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death..." Death. That is as scary as it gets. "...I will fear no evil." It doesn't say you won't be afraid of the scary stuff, it says that when you walk in faith, evil cannot touch you.

Faith cannot act if it is not challenged. It cannot win if there is no enemy. Living in faith means being scared, it is living outside of your comfort zone, it is not knowing what's going to happen. It is seeing the odds and the danger and knowing that you have something more. Faith is a decision every single day, many times a day. Faith is going and getting what you know belongs to you.

The most important ingredient in faith is God. This is what gives faith its authority, it's power. Faith is not the belief that everything is going to go your way. Faith is knowing that an entire heaven stands behind you, that all of the bad things this world has ever seen is no match for the authority you wield, that good will ultimately win. That you can do anything through Christ who strengthens you.

Faith is believing in the things that you cannot see. You cannot smell God, touch God, or hear God. And I know why. He is more. If you tell me that there is nothing more than numbers and smells and sounds and stimuli creating reactions in our nervous system, I will tell you that you are wrong. There is more. We are more. You can look me in the eyes and tell me that I am nothing more than cells and atoms and a few billion years of evolution, and you will see that you are wrong, that there is eternity in me, that I am more than even I can comprehend.