Easter always makes me reflect on 'faith'; every religion is built on it. All religions promulgate that there is a spiritual afterlife. Our awareness of an inner self, as distinct from our awareness of an ever-degenerating physical body, makes the idea of death (a state of non-existence) extremely unpalatable and unacceptable.

We know that our physical bodies, deprived of a cohesive life-force, will eventually revert to the elements from which they were formed. True Christians live their lives in expectation of an eternal spiritual life. We have faith that our souls will live on beyond the confines of time and space. Our so-called 'hope for an everlasting life' is not just an empty dream of immortality.

Many Christians have personalised their 'faith', that is to say, they have used 'faith' for direct and indirect supplications for help from God. They smugly believe that, as professed Christians, God will take care of them - keep evil away and see to their mundane desires and success as long as they continue to worship Him. They also believe that He will act on their behalf, set powerful spiritual forces in motion to usurp His physical laws in order to protect them, attend to their needs and sometimes, their wants.

Some Christians assume that, since they transformed themselves into what they believe it means to be a follower of Christ and a child of God, He will automatically adopt them, shield them, put great forces at their disposal and give them the keys to Heaven. That kind of Christian 'faith' is presumptuous and biased. It automatically excludes all other religions and even some denominations from salvation. It also makes God seem like a doting old man, so enamoured with the mere mention of His Son's name, that He enshrouds the 'believer' in spiritual and physical armour. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Self-sacrifice

A family friend and spiritual sage once told me that Christianity (what I see as the admiration and invitation of the Holy Ghost) requires suffering and self-sacrifice. Holier-than-thou, puffed up self-adulation has no place in Christianity. Assembly, prayer and meditation can point you in the right (spiritual) direction but, having faith in the one true God and ministering to (helping) others is what it's all about.

Late last year, a patient/friend of mine was going through a rougher-than-usual patch. She referred to herself as a 'lousy Christian' because she was losing her faith. I explained that people mistakenly think that faith is when we believe that God will do what we wish for but that true faith is when we believe that God is going to do what is best - even if it is not what we wish for. Jesus had faith and yet he lived a very hard, lonely, demanding and painful life followed by a lonely and painful death. He summed it up well when He said: "God's will be done."

It took years of personal and vicarious trials and suffering to see the simple truth about faith. It has less to do with the belief that, through the power of God, we can do wondrous things (mostly for ourselves, or our friends or our relatives), and more to do with the overriding belief that God knows precisely what He's doing.

In times like these when evil has become pervasive and seemingly boundless, and when the global economy is in disarray, we need to focus on the omniscience of God and keep the faith, knowing that He is always in charge and knows best.

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