I don’t hide the fact that I’m a Christian. Yes, thats right, I’m a Jesus Freak and I’m Proud of it! Okay, maybe Jesus fanatic suits me just fine. But even in 12 years of being a believer I sometimes wrestle with the truths  of my “Jesus culture” when at this point most would think “you should have it all together.” Well I say, just because I pray for you, pray over you, exhort you, advise you and counsel you, it doesn’t mean I have lost all maturity in my journey with Christ because I tussle with questions of various sorts. And it doesnt make me any less able to pray for you, pray over you, exhort you, advise you, counsel you. All these actions are predicated on the desire of my heart to help you and to use what the Lord has given me to share.

In 2011, Sarah Bessey (a woman, whose blog I have completely fallen in love with) wrote about child like faith as written in Luke 18:17 not in the conventional manner in which you would think, but in a manner that welcomes the idea of asking questions and wondering about mysteries of a matter. She so wonderfully points out that kids ask a whole lot of questions. We can’t deny that they do not (especially if you have kids).

“Yes, I’m not the only one that feels this way!,” I say to myself.

All that to say, I have been studying the topic of faith for God knows how long and been finding it difficult to draft a visual picture (being the visual creature that i am) of: Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, a scripture located in Hebrews 11:1

In my childlike manner of questioning: Okay, well, what is the definition of substance? And, what is the meaning of evidence?

Answer to myself: faith is the essence or reality of what we hope for and the testimony or proof of what we cannot see.

In my childlike manner of questioning: What? (not kidding this time) If anyone knows me, I totally over analyze everything and this is the position I found myself in even though – i knew how I defined my personal faith was quite clear to me. I believe, I trust and I love and I know He (God that is) loves. All of that wrapped in one made my faith, but I wanted to dig deeper and I wanted those who believed in other things to see the core of what makes up my Jesus culture…not because I have to, but because I want to. I mean, if you are passionate about something, you share it right? You just don’t keep it to yourself.

Strong convictions pervade perception so that how you look at life and what you believe without a shadow of doubt will be reflected in the decisions you make, what you do and say and how you speak. In essence your faith becomes your living reality simply because you believe something enough to be true and then it becomes true enough to describe what happens in your life and what is in your life.

That is what faith is! It is something that is believed, especially with a strong conviction (atleast according to merriam-webster’s dictionary). It is the strong conviction I described above without question.

As I wrote that, I realized that the word faith is not solely used to describe how I feel about God, about Jesus Christ. We apparently can have faith in alot of things, but how that pans out with those other things is another question.

Get the highest possible level of education you can achieve and you will be successful. Why? Because companies respect the education and will hire you. And you will get paid good monay (in my best Haitian accent).

NOT! I may get a lot of pushback on this, but what the heck! I’m going for it! It has to be said. I love you Haitian parents for wanting your children to achieve the best, but the best is not always equivalent to what you perceive because it may not be God’s best! 

Don’t get me wrong,  this path totally works for a lot of people. It didn’t however work for me. It didn’t matter what level of education I achieved, I was treated as if I didn’t receive one at all. So there I was trusting a path of life to work out a certain way and it didn’t.

So faith is also about trust. Although we put our trust in God, we also tend to put our trust in people, in systems and structures. But, here is the real hard truth of it all. The same trust you put in people, systems and structures cannot possibly yield the same results as the trust you put in God. I say this not to sound cocky about my faith, I say it because it has been my living reality. And in the depths of my life’s journey, I can find peace in knowing that even if for that brief moment, I want to go and hide under the covers and never come out, my faith revives me and I see the world not as something to hide from, but a place to embrace, to love, to learn from, to help change. With that at the helm, my decisions become a reflection of what I believe. I may not always get it right, but o well, it will end well.

How can I say that? Because I trust Him!

What a sigh of relief! I can breath again!

Normel Smith

Wife to an amazing husband, mother to an exploring toddler and an MPA graduate aspiring to impact the world with encouragement in mothering and in social entrepreneurship.