Faith is a Shovel

I am only One,

But I AM one.

I cannot do everything,

But I can do something.

All that I can do,

I ought to do.

All that I can do,

By the Grace of God,

I will do.

            -- Helen Keller

I have a saying, I don't know where I got it, but it goes like this: I wondered why somebody didn't do something. Then I remembered I am somebody!

I find it interesting how many people talk about faith; and yet fail to do. Faith is not a state of being it is a state of action. My brother used to tell me that if I were to have the faith to move a mountain, that I should get a shovel.

Great works - even small works - start with great faith. If we want more of anything in our lives we must have the faith necessary to make it so. In other words if you want more happiness, don't go looking for it - be it. Be happy. Have faith that you can be happy. Not every day. Not even all day. But just right now, this moment, for just a moment, be happy. I give you permission. You don't need my permission, you know!

If you want more love in your life, be love. How can anyone with a sour, sad, faithless disposition expect to have love when that are thus oriented? That would be like standing in a field at dawn and facing west and wondering, where is the sun? You see it all around you, but you can't see the sun - you are looking in the wrong direction. Look inside yourself and find your own love, be your own love, and other love - outside love will find you. You won't have to go looking for it, because it will already be there.

You cannot look to the outside world for those things you want (and need) in life. You have to look within first. You have to develop a faith that it will appear, and then be that which you desire. If you want to be a mountain mover, start shoveling. 

Our inner world - our inner dialog creates our outer reality. If we cannot see ourselves as happy, loving people, we cannot ever become so. If we cannot give love to those around us, we cannot receive the love others would give us.

As long as you believe that other people, events or conditions are necessary for you to have those things you want in life - you will never have them. You and you alone are responsible for who you are, what you believe and what you become. It is your divine right to set your own course.

The only exception to this is when your course would take that same right from another. We must learn to allow others their otherness. We must recognize that different is only that - different. As long as that difference does not disallow others their right to be different, then we must accept that their difference is okay.

Faith is belief in action. It is hope with legs. It is life with living. Have faith in yourself. Do those things that will allow you to be all that you wish to be.