Second-hand Faith Versus First-hand Faith

Firstly I must let you all know I am brand-new to the blogger-world..... and I am very excited about it.  I had been postponing my starting a blog site for the past 3 months because I was not sure on what I wanted to blog about. My aim is to focus on JUST ONE THING as I am a strong believer in “don’t be jacks of all trades, master of none”. After so many weeks, I have finally decided to share with my readers about MY WALK WITH GOD, meaning my focus would be on my Christian life!!

Although I have always been a christian, I began developing my walk with God four years ago. Growing up,I had no choice but to follow my parents to church, I also went to a christian school where we pretty much prayed about 5times everyday and were forced to go to church on Sundays(trust me there were some Sundays I rather would have stayed in bed than go to church for 6 hours). So in my early years, I had no understanding of the word of God, I did all I did, because I was required to.

My parents did a decent job in bringing me up in the word of God. My mum led a “Kids’ Bible Club” which took place every Friday evening where she taught all the kids in attendance bible stories and memory verses. Then, I had no choice as to whether I wanted to serve God or not, it was my environment and parents that determined how I was brought up spiritually. My faith was a second hand faith.

However, when I grew up, I had the option to CHOOSE,...:) at this stage, parents barely had any say in whether I remained a TRUE believer or not since I was sooo sooo far away from home and they could only believe what I told them over the phone..(Thank God for a HUGE WORLD). I really was not sure of what I was doing but I was determined to continue in my faith and build on my foundation. I started developing my personal walk with God in my 1st year in university.

Sometimes I was totally oblivious about what I read in the bible but I never gave up. My goal was to keep the fire burning and although it took a while, I began to have a better insight. Presently, not everything works out the way I want them to but I have reached a stage in my life where I can boldly say, just like Job said in Job 19:23 “I know my redeemer lives and that in the end He will stand upon the earth and after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh, I will see God”.

Job knew God so well that even when he lost EVERYTHING, and despite what his wife and friends said to him, he was able to ignore them and let them know that whatever he was going through, “[HIS] REDEEMER LIVES”.

At this stage, I must be honest with you, I didn’t come up with the title of this my first write up. It was part of a sentence I heard in church this past Sunday and totally fell in love with it. The sentence reminded me of the people I know and stories I have heard about those who have “LOST” their faith because of different circumstances. It is sad that they have decided to shut God out of their lives but after thinking about it and remembering the study I did on the life of Job earlier this year, I immediately knew that whatever their faith was based on was faulty and that is why they were able to toss it away when things changed.

Second hand faith is not totally wrong in fact it is sometimes a building block for First-hand faith (like in my case) but dwelling on second hand faith has its effects. A true test of faith is our ability to hold on to what we profess when situations in our lives become unpleasant and it seems everything has failed us. Having a solid relationship with God gives birth to First-hand faith. This is the desired type of faith because we realize that when things in this world go wrong, we have a GOD that NEVER EVER fails. Whatever the building block of our faith is, it is best we continue to build on it so that, in a world where things are uncertain, whatever may come our way (Bad stuff of course) we can still STAND.