A Measure of Faith

Recently, I had the pleasure of watching a rerun of Simon Birch. For anyone who hasn't seen this movie, I truly recommend this flick. It's about a little boy who was born so small that all his mother had to do to deliver him during labour was to sneeze! Although this movie was not based on a true story, I was inspired and moved all the same.

This story magnified the sins of a society that judged a book by it's cover. Simon was sadly misjudged and unappreciated by his community and those who were suppose to be significant to him - his parents. They didn't care for him because of his deformities. But God's love for him reached him anyway through his best friend Joe and Joe's mother. Wanna know why? Because the same society was also judging Joe and his mother. Joe was born out of wedlock and no one knew who his father was. Except for Joe's mother, of course, who took that knowledge to her grave. Simon helped Joe discover who Joe's father was, in the end.

But what was intriguing to me was the amount of faith Simon had in his Creator. He believed that his deformities were for a reason. He believed in the Divine Design. He believed that everything and everyone was created for a special reason. Simon blatantly pointed out, even to those who were not willing to listen to him, that God has nothing to do with bake sales or a priest sharing coffee and doughnuts with his parish. He also pointed out that faith is not about where you pray but it's about whether you believe that God is actually listening to you when you are praying. When he was told to go pray in a corner as a punishment for speaking out his mind, he said that faith had nothing to do with the floor plan! I laughed out loud at the courage of this little mite and quietly wished that I had half the guts he had to speak his mind.

It is easy for people to believe that someone has faith when they dress the part. But the devil can dress the part too! However, there is something that the devil had sworn he can't do, and that is to sway a heart that is filled with faith and sincerity. So, when you have faith and sincerity in your heart, half the battle against the devil is won. The other half, is left up to you. When you decide that you believe, then you will and you become a believer. Now, what you choose to do with that faith is the thing that determines how close or far you are from your true self and God.