Doubting Thomas or Joe or Jane
Most of you know the story, Jesus appeared to him after his resurrection and said, Thomas, come here and place your fingers in my wounds. Finally,Thomas believed. He went on to establish churches in Syria, India and other places and those churches still stand today. It finally clicked he believed Jesus Christ. He had faith.
I have taken the liberty to paraphrase portions of the Bible without going into depth because I don't want this to be Bible study, but explain to you how important faith is to your success in life. Even Thomas, who walked with Jesus on the face of this earth and saw miracle after miracle was not convinced enough to have faith. My question to you is, where do you get your faith?
You see, we all have faith, we have faith we will wake up tomorrow morning after a night of fitful sleep. You may not call it faith, but that's what it is. If Thomas teaches us anything, it is that faith does not stand alone...even if one sees a miracle take place in front of them, doubt creeps in and your mind says it's an aberration. Even if Jesus came down here on earth and performed a miracle front of your eyes, you would find some reason not to believe that miracle, just like Doubting Thomas!
I will tell you this, that your father was a King and yet you act like a pauper. You have royal blood in your veins and yet you do not believe. Because you lack faith you do not believe what the mind can conceive and believe it can achieve.
Faith is intangible, you cannot buy it, cannot see it, but you can feel it and see the results once you put in the hard work to achieve what ever you are trying to achieve. First the faith then extremely hard work in which you must believe that you will be successful. If you truly don't believe you will be successful then you will fail because you lack the faith to continue until success comes your way.
Let me tell you a short story about my first difficult experience in the U.S. Marine Corps. It was a beautiful sunny day, 95° and we saddled up for a 20 mile forced march with full combat gear. They marched us through creeks, uphills, down hills, through forests, through meadows, back across creeks and up more hills. My soaking wet wool socks slipped down beneath the heel of my feet and the blisters started to form. The pain was agonizing! The pack bit into my shoulders, the rifle weighing down my right arm, the helmet bouncing on my head caused more misery. Lack of water in the suffocating heat and dust, made my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth. My utilities turned black- wet with sweat. People often told me that I could sweat in a refrigerator and during this march sweat was running off of me in rivers.
The long line of Marines marched at an unbelievable pace of over 6 mi./hour. The front of the column moved fast and the Marines in the middle and at the end had to run to keep up. The line weaved in and out like an accordion. Gunnery sergeants walked up and down the line telling us we could not run- we had to walk and stretch our legs which was so painful. I knew my feet were bleeding and my thighs felt like they were being ripped off my body. My left arm fell asleep, lack of blood circulation and hung limply at my side.
With great trepidation I looked up ahead saw the huge hill that I had to climb and my spirit sank like a stone in a lake. I was barely hanging on. I looked up through the trees and said a prayer." Dear God in heaven, please do not let me quit, take my life instead. I cannot quit...I will not quit. I will walk till I die." Once, I quit bickering about the price I was paying and the all-consuming pain, I put one foot in front of the other and faith carried me to the finish line.
My dear friends in order to be successful in life you must put yourself in the arena and fight. You can't sit on the sidelines and wish your life away. Some people want to be a big fish in a small pond. I'm sure you heard this before. I believe all of us should be a big fish in a big pond. My dad used to have a saying, "talk is cheap whiskey cost money". Success in your marriage, raising kids, your job, your hobby, your business all comes with a price, but first starts out with faith. Talk is just talk- action is faith!
Yes my friends, you will have failed many times in your life before your journey on this earth is through. Failure is God's way of trying to find out if we do have faith and if we're willing to stay the course with our faith. Stay the course and two things will happen...you will be successful in your endeavor and your faith in God's love will explode!
Best regards,
Mac
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Mac, Thank you for this post this morning. I enjoyed reading and asked myself, where is my faith? I am a person who self-doubts, and with all the world chatter, it is easy to lose faith and direction. This morning, I am working on my faith and tackling my self-doubt. Have a wonderful day!
Hi Kathy thanks for your faith...after retiring from the Corps I began teaching ED students... special education teachers are special, so thank you for teaching tough kids!
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What a motivational post. Thanks.