It surprises me sometimes the amount of people who lack faith in our culture today. Turned off by established religion, they choose to walk through life not believing in anything rather than accepting that there is more in life than what we, as humans perceive. Personally, I choose to believe in the power of God, and yes in the redeeming blood of his son Jesus on the cross of salvation. Can I, with certainty, tell you that this is the one and only belief one can have to acquire spiritual understanding? No, it isn’t, it is, however, a starting point for me in this article. Based on my own beliefs and experiences I have found that faith plays a key role in determining the path you travel in life and the results from the choices you make. I believe that faith based beliefs lift us up to a higher authority and bring us peace when none can be found in life.

Belief is a powerful state of mind, it opens us to the possibilities, it shields us from being alone and it offers us refuge in time of trial as we travel this realm of incarnation. Our faith defines our existence and molds who we are as humans. Faith enhances our potential in and opens our eyes to infinite power in life.

We have all heard the old adage, ‘Ye reap what ye sow’. All of our actions and reactions to life bring us to where we are today. By accepting a higher power we utilize the untold wealth of like consciousness with others and with a supreme being. I have faith that no matter what I do my God loves and forgives me my short comings. I have faith that no matter my needs, God will meet them in one way or another. It may not be what I want, but it is always what I need at a particular time in my life. You see that is the great thing about my belief in God, no matter what I do, what mistakes I make, there is always hope that I can undo the messes I create and with his help overcome adversity and see the true light of spirit.

There are a lot of obstacles in this life. Each day we are faced with uncertainty, war, rising gas prices and poverty. Hard to have faith in a God that would allow this to happen, but that is the thing here. He gives us free will to chose our path and experience those things we need to experience to grow spiritually. After all, this life is just a short stint compared to eternity in spirit. Without faith that all things are of God, I am not sure I could personally continue, as life here is so hard and often I find it difficult to maintain and find those life lessons I need to progress.

Simply put spiritual growth means increasing your mind and knowledge to your faith base, (mine is God), decreasing the repetitive mistakes you make in life, learning from the lessons lived, increasing your practice of faith, increasing your faith in a higher entity, (again, mine is in God), and last, find your path to inner peace while you are here using your faith base as your foundation.

Learning to grow spiritually is a life long lesson. It takes us through many levels of incarnation until we at last reach that plane where we are pure in the light and love of God. While my God works in different ways with different people, we have to look to other religions that also serve a purpose in life. While I claim to be a Christian, I do not discount the others as it is my personal belief that much like school, different religions exist to serve the needs of those who have incarnated many times. Like a child, they must move through one grade to progress to the next, not one teacher will enhance their education but it will take many to guide the child as they learn. So the different religions each of us have different needs and are at different levels of spiritual understanding. It is important to have this diversity and to be able to have the freedom to choose that which will help us to grow in spirit.

It does not matter to me your choice of belief; I just wanted to encourage each of you to have a base to build on as you fulfill your journey in this life.