Walk By Faith

At the moment i work in an opticians in Neath. During the quiet times when there's nothing to do you can just sit at the desk and watch the world go by. You see the stressed out mums, clutching about six bags of shopping whilst trying in vain to stop thier 'little darlings' from throwing a tantrum in the street. You see old friends greet eachother with warm hugs and smiling faces, grandparents delighting in the playful giggles of thier small granchild, or you see the sophisticated business woman, marching to her destination with confidence and purpose. I absolutley love watching the world go by, everyone is so different and interesting.... but there's this man who walks past the shop every single day without fail..



He's an older man, with shoulder length grey hair and quite a thick curly, grey beard. He wears tired looking, plain clothes, a baseball cap and a navy blue satchel thats slung over his shoulder. His eyes are hidden behind oversized sunglasses and in his hand he carries a long, white stick. He's blind..



And yet everyday i see him walk past the shop, pulling leaflets out of his satchel and offering them into the air around him, talking about the love of God, hoping that someone passing by will take one.


Every time I see him walk past I think of the scripture 2 Corinthians 5:7 ' For we walk by faith, not by sight'. And this scripture popped up in other places too... like when i saw the film 'the book of Eli'..
I was challenged by someone I talked to the other day about God and he bombarded me with questions... if there was a God why this?.. and if He was a good God why that...? and how to you know its God.. it could be just a psychological thing that you think is God... what proof have you got that He's real? how do you know the bible is right? etc... and the answer I nearly always had to give him was... I believe it because I have faith. But it really troubled me for hours afterwards.. doubt started to rear it ugly head, untill i remembered, that God had already given me the scripture to put my mind at rest... i'd been reminded of it everyday previously for the past 5 weeks since i've been working in pugh's opticians, almost as if in preperation..... 'we walk by FAITH, not by sight' ( kind of an ironic scipture to get working in an opticians too! lol! ) and when it clicked, the questions dropped from my mind and I had peace...

'It is always right that a man should be able to render a reason for the faith that is within him.' Author: Sydney Smith

'Faith is a higher faculty than reason.'

Phillip James Bailey

'To us also, through every star, through every blade of grass, is not God made visible if we will open our minds and our eyes'
Thomas Carlyle



But this hasn't just helped me with that situation. Its also made me reflect on my faith with regards to my future. There seems to be a reoccurring theme to my conversations over this past week or so and its been a theme thats preoccupied my thoughts. I've been thinking about my dreams, (as in my dreams for the future, not when i'm cwtched up in my bed dreams lol )




God puts desires/dreams in our hearts for a reason... and the bible says ' delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart'. Sometimes there are things that God speaks over our lives or there's things he's placed in our hearts, and we look at the place we're in at the time and say 'how God? How is that ever going to happen?' We look at it with our earthly eyes and get disheartened. 'How can i chase my dream with such little money?' 'Will i ever find 'the one?', 'Have i really got what it takes to achieve this or am i just kidding myself?'



And dreams are such fragile things, sometimes we're afraid to even tell anybody for fear of them being smashed to pieces, by a pessimistic,critical attitude, or a mocking snigger from the listener. (and so i do think its important to be wise about who you choose to tell your dreams to)



I think two of the biggest enemies of dreams is fear and doubt (which is obviously the oppsite of faith). Fear that you havn't got what it takes, doubting that God will fulfill his promises, fear that people will critisize, fear of failure, fearing that your dream is unattainable etc...
Thank God He gives faith as a gift... because I'd never be able to conjure it up on my own!

But meditating on the scripture has made me think that, yeah... maybe right now i have doubts and fears about my desires/dreams coming to pass, because sometimes with your earthly eyes you don't see how it could happen... but in the infamous words of george michael 'you gotta have a'faith'... and in the wonderful words of Dorothy then 'the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true'. =) lol!
But in all seriousness, as painfully hard as it can be sometimes.. when the world comes against you and your mind is screaming out to you to give up your dream or even your faith in God, we really have got to walk by faith.

'Faith is like electricity. You can't see it, but you can see the light.' Author: Anonymous

'I can believe anything provided it is incredible.'
Author: Oscar Wilde

Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase. Author: Martin Luther King Jr.

Faith is to believe what you do not yet see; the reward for this faith is to see what you believe. Author: St Augustine