Faith

Faith always points in the direction of God.  Faith is absolute confidence in God and in the power of God.  Christ said,"'[I]f you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.'" [1]

In contrast, hope is wishful thinking.  At its core is doubt.  A man who hopes does not truly believe that anything he hopes for will come true.  Thus, it can be concluded that man who has no faith is left with hope.  One who preaches hope can therefore be said to have no faith in God or in the power of God and who perhaps may not even believe in God.  Why waste time preaching about hope when it is faith that makes all things impossible possible?

One needs to acquire spiritual strength to have unyielding faith in God.  With unwavering faith in God miracles will occur.  Those who do not believe in miracles have no faith.  They live in fear.  They fear uncertainty and they fear mortality.  These are fears of the secular, not the faithful.

One who fears can hide behind walls, locked doors, teams of security detail and comfort but one cannot hide from oneself and God.  One can worry about forces from without that disturb one's stability and destroy one's flesh but it is the Enemy from within that destroys the soul that ought to be of concern.  All things in the world are transient and back to dust they eventually turn, including one's bones [2], but one's soul is eternal.

Preservation of one's life, possessions and false freedoms (freedoms that are self-centered, sanctimonious and entirely devoid of love of God and neighbor) are primary concerns of man, but preservation of one's soul from sin is the primary concern of God.  Therefore, Christ, God's only Son, came to save man from Original Sin, but it is man who can save himself from the plethora of sins in which he relishes and in which he chooses to indulge.

As one goes through the vicissitudes of life, it may seem impossible to repel the gravitational pull of temptations that directs one's soul down to the abyss.  Since nothing is impossible with God, a far greater force in the opposite direction that leads one's soul away from the abyss is always present for the faithful to reach out and grasp.  It is by having faith, an absolute certainty, not hope, a perpetual uncertainty, that one's soul finds peace in this world.


[1] http://www.usccb.org/bible/matthew/17, at 20.
[2] https://www.scienceabc.com/humans/skeleton-mystery-dont-bones-decay-decompose.html