When a word is commonly misused, its full power and meaning become distorted. All deep understanding is lost, simply because the term is inserted in ways it was not created to be. A perfect illustration of this is the word faith. Faith has evolved into an interchangeable replacement for trust. The two have become so intertwined that all specific differentiation is lost in a homogeneous conglomeration. The true power and deep message of faith is lost altogether.

“Faith” is often falsely used in the sense of, “I have faith that my teacher will show up for class today,” or “I have faith that the grocery store will be open today,” and so on. Though the five letter word is used, the full implication of it is not. These are circumstances where so-called “faith” is acquired from repeated success or fulfillment of duty. Upon digging a little deeper, one will discover that this is not true faith, merely trust.

Trust is dependable, sturdy as a rock, and most of all, known. When one trusts, it is within a safe, controlled environment. The outcome is known, because they have experienced the situation before and can rely on it happening again. It is a learned behavior, based on history and tangible evidence. No “going out on a limb” is necessary because all that is relied upon is the events of the past reoccurring. Powerful as trust is, it is but a single brick of the tower that is faith.

As trust is to a sturdy rock, faith is to a mysterious wind. No one knows where it came from or where it is going, but they are pushed along by it. Backwards as it may seem for something described as wind to be more powerful than a rock, it holds more truth than you might realize. Some kind of wind will be dependably blowing, but how long will that rock remain in the same exact way before it is broken or weathered away? Faith is always there for us, like a breeze off the ocean, but even total trust can be broken in a matter of seconds. As my priest once said,” Trust is watching an acrobat roll a wheelbarrow and knowing that, because of her skill, she will not fall. Faith is when you are in the wheelbarrow.” It is now that the true power of faith becomes clear.

Though faith may feel like trusting in the unknown, it brings a feeling of security and peace like no other. All heavy chains of worries and tight knots of need for control are cut and carried away. As hard as it is to relinquish that control, it is then that true joy is discovered. When you look at the world, it is not those that run the whole world’s business exchanges and live in the obnoxiously large houses that are the happiest or filled with the most peace. It is those on the streets, the elderly in nursing homes, the young, and the innocent that have found their own bits of heaven. The ones with true faith are often those that we consider the most vulnerable. This is because they are the ones that have been forced into doing what is necessary for faith- realizing that you are not the one in control.

As much as we may think that our worrying will affect what happens on our lives, it is a futile effort. There are things that we mere humans are not responsible for. We do not decide what days to wake the sun from its slumber and drag it across the sky. We do not declare who will be the one to cross the road when the drunk drives by. We cannot predict who will be the ones to catch the deadly virus, or who is to suffer from cancer. We simply are incapable of these things because any of those things could happen to us. How are we to control situations that could become the death of us? We can’t, we don’t, and there is no need for us to because there is one greater than us that has willingly taken all these burdens from us with promises of unending love. As much as we will always want to wrap our tiny little minds around every occurrence and extend our hands to clasp the reins of life, it is time to let go.

As unguarded as it may feel to hand over the reins, you have just armed yourself with the most powerful weapon available to mankind. Let go, take that leap of faith, and know that if you put your faith in Him, you will be caught no matter what. "He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.”-Psalm 91:12