I have been walking the road of faith since May of 1977. Prior to that, I was walking a road which I thought was faith, but actually was quite off the mark. Growing up in church, I accepted its set of beliefs or facts about life, death and the after-life. Part of those beliefs were the Ten Commandments which prohibited certain thoughts and actions. Along with those, the church taught other things like the importance of works of charity and regular giving. The beliefs were summed up in writings like the Apostles’ Creed which I read regularly in church services. All these beliefs were my faith, as I understood it.  I believed it was important to show evidence of it by doing good works. Underlying all of this was the belief that someday the All-Knowing God would judge my life.  

In May of 1977, all that radically changed. With the help of a guy named Dave, I came to see all of that as probably pretentious. I came to see the rituals and regulations as performance which could easily be insincere. I was seeking to please a distant, divine being called God. My motivation was not from the heart, but wanting to persuade Him I was really a good person. 

The problem with this approach was that I often sought meaning and happiness in material things. I couldn’t control or understand my emotions. As a young boy, I was in the habit of confessing my sins to a priest and feeling forgiven. However, by that date in 1977, I couldn’t figure out what I needed to confess to a priest. I just gave up on the whole idea of forgiveness. 

So, in conversation with Dave, I began to see faith as deep longing for an honest connection with God. It was putting aside my fiction of goodness while coming to God just as I was, asking for His forgiveness and a brand new life. I remember saying to him “I can’t come to God. I’m not good enough.” Dave’s reply was “that’s not how it works, Rich. First you let God come into your heart and the change happens from the inside out.” I felt like shouting, but said, “That’s the only way it could work with me.”  Later I accepted the fact Jesus covered or atoned for my sins by His bloody death.

In that special time, I understood faith as coming simply to God, trusting Him for my access to Heaven. I saw that the Bible made clear this access is based on complete honesty about my total and complete need for His amazing grace. So, faith seemed like a surrender of all my thoughts of self-righteousness and coming to a firm trust in His goodness and the promises in the Bible. I finally came to see how this type of faith makes every day life simpler and more manageable.

I see now that stressful, worrisome situations surrendered to God bring great relief and ease into my life. I recently had to interact by phone with support persons regarding a purchase I had made. The first two times I talked with them, I struggled to comprehend their words. They each had a thick accent and spoke too fast. So the third time I had to call for help, I simply whispered “God is greater than the internet.” The person I talked to that time spoke slower and with no accent. She actually gave more than I even asked for!

I am not saying I always have wonderful results like this. What I do experience is a sense of relief when I surrender saying something like “this is too much for me, LORD. I give it to You.” Regardless of what happens next, I always feel relief and sometimes I am pleasantly surprised. Other times I just know that I have asked for help from God who has shown He cares and is so much smarter than I am.

So, I have learned that faith in God is a practical and simple tool which can make life much more positive.

I no longer fear death. I have found the reality underneath the words I was first exposed to as a boy.

This kind of faith moved me from a something stiff and stuffy faith to one that I can use every day to make my life easier.