The Art of Faith

As always I’ve been thinking a lot about faith, sometimes I feel that if there comes a moment or even a series of moments where my faith falters it means I’m doing something wrong, that everyone else around me who believes is stronger than I am. I’ve found that that is not true, there is a different kind of strength we need not just belief but control over our emotions and keep on believing. I was reading his book called The Joyful Christian which is essentially a book of excerpts from C.S. Lewis’ work, and one was titled “Belief”. This is a passage from Mere Christianity, and in it Lewis talks about the difference between belief and reason, for example I hate getting vaccinations, my reason tells me that it’s for my own good and that they really do not hurt all that much, but I still ignore my reason and try to avoid getting shots. This, Lewis writes, is the battle between reason and emotion, my intellect tells me one thing but my emotions tell me another. This can be carried over to faith, the battle between faith and emotion. There are times when the sun is shining and everything is great and I say “Sure, God is looking down on me right now” then there are times when God is distant, when I’m on my own when I say “Am I absolutely sure about everything?” But C.S. Lewis continues, he writes that “Faith…is the art of holding onto things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods” he also writes that he went through my same dilemma, and I am positive that everyone at one time or another feels the same way. Lewis finishes the passage saying “That is why Faith is such a necessary virtue: unless you teach your moods ‘where to get off’ you can never be either a sound Christian or even a sound atheist, but just a creature dithering to and fro” I know what I believe, and the hard part, faith, is continuing to believe even when my moods change.