where does faith come from? like literally? is it the same as feelings?

meh. not an easy question wtf

well.

since giving my life to christ, ive come to understand that there are strong differences between faith for a higher power and feelings for a higher power. its been a gradual discovery, a process of natural learning about myself, while struggling... stumbling and learning just who god is.

human emotion is a learned mechanism of surviving. call it a growth hormone... we as, as a whole body, are born into one world. and we as individuals, are born with the ability to feel. but do not be mistaken, we are born selfish creatures..

often times we as humans learn to depend on our emotions to determine our feelings, whether permanent or temporary... chemically driven, can be enhanced by substance or simply produced by the motions of daily living... they influence our relationships, our habits, our trespasses too...they influence us in ways that often times, as the rest of the world evolves around us, our train of thoughts remain stuck, on several tracks... slowly, or very quickly, pulling us in all directions, giving us reasons for which we can only divide our hearts, our minds, sometimes even our souls...
and with no direction in hand, feelings can make or break the promise of new life...
suppose that is why we are so prone to find our faith in other things besides god. we grow dependent on the feelings we find in things that the world offers. be it drugs, alcohol... money. possessions. destructive relationships. the list really do go on and on but u kno how lazy i am u get the jest of it...

fuck i dont want to talk about this. id rather listen to the doors, and let my numbness take the wheel. fuckit im already talkin.... k so

faith is not as easily defined. there is no FAITH 101... it is often mistaken for feelings. yes this i learned the hard way... more importantly tho, ive learned that since giving my life to christ, my feelings don't ever really matter against my faith. here here! have to give thanks, even for the nothings. u see even when the world has shit in my cheerios, i can only make it my first (or second or third)priority to be thankful. not to the world, but to christ. even at my worst, my faith in god is there to pull my hands back and say hey, d fucka, chill the fuck outs bitch.

yes in all my experience of living and losing, ive learned that losing is only temporary. and winning does not even exist.

after completing seminary several years ago (fuck that was a long time ago lol) i looked forward to a life of honesty and redemption. a life of giving to and for god... my years as a firefighter were behind me, or so i thought...

at that time, my feelings were telling me i needed to simply run away. but my faith was driven by the need to get the fuck out of a life where playing with fire was my thrill, and being FIRST was nothing but just another fuckin day on the job... i often had to wonder was my gift for saving lives just a learned skill or was it the bi product of a purpose i did not kno about?
i did kno one thing by then, seeing someone on the brink of death and knowing ur hands are the only hands they have for those few minutes, somehow, god makes himself known around u. u FEEL the urgency. without looking at ur watch u FEEL how many minutes u have. when the persons eyes are fixed on urs, they cannot process what u are saying no matter how loudly u speak in their direction, they are not looking at u. but they FEEL u... load em up, stabilize. give the rest to god ive said.

so yes at that time, i felt god calling me, i heard him... but my eyes could not see fully in his direction. it did not help that getting kicked out of one baptist church (and not yet thrown out of the second) sort of blew the wind out of my fuckin sails.... still, the tat i gave pastor henry's wife came from the heart, semper fi..... and the vodka i gave her was only to numb the pain.

but it was not without making me take a good hard look back and really... really think.... it made no sense. if it was god calling, why was i the way i was... was my faith in him all a dream??? and could i really really abstain from fornicating???? and no smoking??? WTF????? yea. suppose i had some answers to find, and fuck the best ones i could get my hands on, these answer had to be RIGHT. i knew that much.

i realized that it was not god calling me to become a preacher. as good as everybody said i was, that they could feel my words roll off the tip of my tongue and feel the lord coming thru them.... i realized that if anything, god was calling me to do something, but to preach, no. in fact, i realized that even tho i had a passion for the lord and bringing others by the masses to him, it could very well have been turned a weapon, having led the lost straight into the path of destruction, where i was already an expert. shhit. yeeeea. go me right.

moral of the story, i learned the hard way that faith cannot be taught. a person who has none cannot be taught where to grow faith. not any more than a preacher who is lost can be taught how to preach it.

feelings well... it is ok to have feelings. but it is even better to have faith. cuz in this world, we are only human, as primarily lost as we are naturally chosen to be born. as thirsty to conquer as we are hungry for peace. as quick to feel as we are fast to take. as eager to find freedom as we are slow to serve...



DSM