How Do I Build More Faith?

 "How do I build more faith?" someone asked this week.  It was a question I had asked myself many years ago:  "How do I GET this faith that everyone says is so important?"  

We recognize that faith is a GIFT of the Holy Spirit.  It must be given; we do not manufacture it, no matter how hard we try.  So then, somehow, we must get close to, or even into, the Holy Spirit, Who is the Father of Faith.  His job is to awaken in us the divine gifts of faith, hope, and love.  

"I will not leave you orphans," said Jesus at the Last Supper.  "I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me...if anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him" (Jn. 14).

According to Bishop Robert Barron, faith is an attitude of trust in the presence of God.  It is an openness to what God will reveal, do, and invite.  Whatever circumstances we find ourselves in, we can and do believe that God is there with us, present to us, and if present to us, then acting in us, for us, and with us.

"Does God care if we get a parking place or not?" someone once asked me.  The implication here is that God has bigger things to think about than what we might need at the moment.  But how important is that parking place to us?  If we are driving around the doughnut shop six times praying for someone to pull out and leave space for us, well..... But if we have a doctor's appointment and a sick child in the car, I think it is fair to say God is with us and for us.  God does not have "bigger" things to think about than the safety and protection of His children.  The parable of the prodigal son shows us the Father on the roof of his house, anxiously looking down the road for the return of His son who "was lost and has now returned to us."

When we think about our own children, even our adult children, nothing is more important to us than what they are experiencing in their lives.  Wherever they are struggling or hurting enters our hearts; we have no "bigger" concerns than their welfare.  And Jesus, at the Last Supper, with so much tenderness toward his friends, promises that He will send the Holy Spirit to be with them when He cannot.  

If we are to acquire this trust in the presence of God in the smallest details of our lives, this radical openness to what God will do for us, in us, and with us, I think maybe the best place to begin is by reading the Gospel of John, especially chapters 13-16, the Last Supper discourse.  Jesus begins by washing the feet of the disciples.  What a small gesture with such great import!  Can we imagine Him washing our feet?  Bathing our souls?  Pouring ointment on our open wounds?  God With Us -- Emmanual.  He is here, with us.  He still does what He did then.  Are we open to what He will do, what He can do?

We ask for what we need, for what we want, but we believe that He can and will do what is best for us, as a good physician, as a good mother would for her children.  

Is the scripture of divine origin or of human origin?  This may be the first question we must answer.

If it is of divine origin, if it is indeed the living word of God, then we need to embrace it, read it with whatever "faith" we have.  As we read it, we begin to believe it.  As we believe it, the Truth begins to form and re-form our minds and hearts.  If we allow it to re-shape us, we begin to trust what it says -- that God sent His Son to be present to us through the presence of the Holy Spirit.  Then we become curious as to what this Spirit will do in our lives; we begin to believe that He might indeed really be with us and in us and for us.  And if present, then acting in us, for us, and with us.  And so, then, faith at last!