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Cultivating faith is a process. It takes time, commitment, and concerted effort. Similar to childhood development, just when we’ve mastered one set of skills, it seems like God (or Good) puts new challenges in our way, asking more of our faith, asking us to level up. Which comes first? Faith or the opportunity to cultivate it? Who knows, really, and who cares? The point is that it’s a process and a valuable one.
One of the most challenging aspects of building faith is forward progress. We start to feel better and do better, and therefore the people, places, and things around us inherently have to change. Once we start to slow down, breath, pray, meditate, and make better choices, it becomes increasingly difficult to stay mired in the mess we created while operating as faithless animals. It’s awful and painful and confusing and healing and wonderful and liberating if we stick with it. But the point is we actually have to STICK. WITH. IT.
We actually have to have faith that things will get better before they do. We have to say goodbye to terrible sources support (and we all know who/what those are). We have to fortify ourselves internally through therapy, meditation, grounding, positive self-talk, self-care, and self-compassion. And then we kind of just have to breathe, pray, and meditate until we find healthier, more positive environments and healthier, more positive people. We all know who those people are too: people who are consistent, who hold themselves accountable, who accept feedback, who love themselves, who are capable of loving others, who are considerate, and who may even have faith of their own.
One of the most important questions we eventually have to ask ourselves, while cultivating faith is:
Is a safety net full of holes still a safety net?
The people, places, and things we have used - and I do mean to use the word used - to get by or try to feel better or connect are almost always based on faithless, dysfunctional systems and behavior. The hardest part of cultivating faith is untangling ourselves from that torn, tattered “safety” net we have tried to use to feel better for so long, and save ourselves. We have to set limits with others. We have to walk away from dysfunctional patterns. We have to have faith that if we do better, we can find better, without any promise of that reality.
(So many have-tos in this post. I am being particularly emphatic right now)
Don’t get me wrong, it’s flattering to be loved by others, but is it really love if you run the risk of smashing through the net into the floor on your way down on a bad day? Without faith, we don’t even bother to ask if we feel safe, because we’re too BLEEPING busy trying to sew the holes in the net back together ourselves. Without faith, we don’t even stop to ask ourselves:
How reassuring are the systems around me? How safe am I, really?
But faith eventually, begs that question: how safe am I, really? It’s a painful question to ask, and one we’re only willing to ask when we have enough faith to confront that reality. But the Good news is, then we can go about the business of creating safety, even if that means changing ourselves and the people, places, or things around us.