Faith is...

Faith is what you need it to be,

Faith is heaven for the lonely,

Banked home well past reason,

It pastes us home for the season.

Faith is beyond dark into light,

Faith is the answer for the night,

Willing and able to broach the moss,

It somehow shields with glorious gloss.

Faith enters where fools do not dare,

Faith engenders a gently bridled care,

Patience apparent and wisdom’s there too,

Faith’s the presence of hope felt due.

When faith’s abundant there’s nothing to fear,

Faith to conquer – life’s safe and dear,

Seen as active and bristling with trust,

Never gives up is seen as a must.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Faith is one of those things that is difficult to define. It’s perhaps easier to see in action than it is to describe. But our task is to describe it—to pick it up as finger food, place it in our mouths and ruminate over the taste of it.

First Stanza Explained

Faith’s heaven for the lonely; they have strength for the confounding moment, despite the fact they have no one to lean on. They feel God’s Presence eerily and inexplicably close.

Faith denies and shakes reason. It’s beyond it. How do we possibly ‘reason’ faith? It is, of a sense, completely unreasonable.

Second Stanza Explained

Beyond the dark night of one’s soul is faith. It rests somewhere halfway past the point of the dark night. But it was also faith that got us through the night into gleaming day. We get through the night and new light dawns as we enter a hope-filled circumstance. Faith’s the thing that got us there! It’s a shield for us with a glorious gloss, like the heat shield for the space vehicle re-entering earth’s atmosphere.

Third Stanza Explained

More than a pinch of courage is required for genuine faith to be known. It’s like the spark plug for the petrol engine. It would be little good for us to express faith only to baulk at the first challenge.

If courage is the hardness of faith, patience and wisdom is the necessary tempering of the precious metal for the sword of our spirits. Somehow we have not only the strength of courage, but also the buoyantly hopeful joy to remain for as long as we need to.

Fourth Stanza Explained

When faith is abundant, fear is vanquished. Faith is the answer to fear. It’s the only answer with any veracity. It therefore provides much needed safety and security.

Faith must bristle with trust. They’re one and the same. When we trust we do not easily give up. We believe in our way.

© 2010 S. J. Wickham.