Faith

Faith - believing in something you cannot see, trust.

Faith seems almost like an emotion in that it is like fine silk, passing through our lives, just as silk slides through our fingers.

Sometimes faith is strong, sometimes it is weak. Sometimes faith is in people which for the most part will at some point fail on you. Sometimes faith is in material goods, that are lost, stolen, destroyed, lose value. Sometimes faith is in this or that god either contrived or known.

Faith is personal. It changes over time due to our experience with it or from knowledge received because of it. It may change as we change in our perception of the world around us, events or just how we feel a certain day.

Sometimes though one's faith in a particular instance may be in some primary entity in one's life, like God, with a capital G, referring to the god of the Israelites of ancient Palestine and later the nation of Israel.

As the story of the Bible unfolded through the Old Testament and into the New Testament, followers of Jesus began to accept the God of the Israelites as their own God to worship. These followers were comprised not only of Jews but also from non-Jews in various parts of the Mediterranean world of that time. This group expanded over time landing more so in Europe than in other places.

It seems that around the time of the Reformation, that an element of Christianity lost for many centuries to the masses, that of personal faith started reappearing. Instead it seems to have been gobbled up by organized religion in the emergence of the Catholic Church, that becoming the official religion in many countries.

Martin Luther with his writings started questioning the official church on several points among them faith.

Which brings us via fast forward to today.

Personal faith - that which one can claim as their stake to which the rest of their life is tied. We all have faith of one kind or another, something we believe in to help us in times of need, something to cling to, trust, relate to.