1. The idea that this section revolves around is the question "What is Faith?". This is not a simple question for anyone to answer. Also, there is no correct answer because each person's personal definition of faith is different from the next persons. The details in each definition will be different, but most likely your personal definition of faith will contain words like belief, trust, or loyalty. That is what most people associate faith with because these words are the basis of the secular definition of faith and is the type of faith that most people are used to hearing about. Your faith might be stronger, weaker, somewhat simple, or very complex but chances are that it is not complete faith. If a person had complete faith in something, they could never doubt it at all. I do not have complete faith in anything, not even myself because I know that i am not perfect and that I screw up a lot. I am ok with this fact because I know that the people who I have faith in will forgive me because they have faith that I will strive to do better. We have interactions of faith between people almost every day.
2. Two ideas that I want to remember from this chapter are: faith will include elements of darkness and doubt and that faith is a grace. A good faith life will include elements of darkness and doubt because we cannot fully understand what we have faith in, so we begin to doubt. It is human nature to question things. When we question things that are so complex, such as our faith life, we should be concerned about where our faith life is taking it. We should keep pressing on it and trying to grow more. When you cannot find answers and you begin to doubt, remember that a healthy faith life includes periods of darkness and doubt. We are not alone whenever we question our faith.
Personally, I sometimes assume that my faith is boring and does not matter. This is totally wrong because our faith is a grace. God is giving us help to become closer to him. It is a supernatural gift that can do nothing but help us. It causes us to believe more in him because we realize that we can not have faith without his help. God wants us to be with him, that is why he offers this wonderful gift of faith to us everyday. He is always with us in everything we do and that is the beauty of his grace in our lives.
3. For me, a great example of faith is Christian Rock. This is a photo of Matt Thiessen, the lead vocalist, pianist, one of the guitarist and primary songwriter for Relient K. The band Relient K has incredible talent and could be making a lot more money if they did not sing Christian Rock because every member of the band is extremely gifted in music. What is amazing though is that despite the other bands making more money and getting more fans who are not Christian Rockers, they still do it because they believe it is the right thing to do and it is their way of praising God. That is faith. To give up more money and more fame in order to rock out for God since you have been a junior in highschool and continue to do it through your twenties with no intention of stopping just blows my mind.
4. All of this applies to me here and now because I am going through these things right now. Everyday, my faith is a battle. I question what my faith is, who is it in, why is it in some people, why is it so hard, and other questions like those I ask myself everyday. This section showed me that it is natural to wrestle with my faith a lot because everyone does it. It is something that happens a lot in a healthy faith life. The ideas in this chapter have showed me that I am not alone in my struggles and questions in my faith. This is fantastic because I worried a lot about my faith life because I questioned it so often that I thought it was horrible. Turns out I was wrong.