Faith does not exists apart from trust.
Everyone has faith in something or somebody.
but everyone does not have faith in God.
In order to have faith it is not necessary to have
faith in God.
There is no distinction in having faith in God
and trusting God.
What, then, is faith? What is faith
in God?
Faith is not belief but there is an element of
belief in faith.
There are many things we believe without any
thought of believing in them. We believe in a
way all sorts of facts we are informed of by
competent authorities. We believe that some
astronauts literally set food on the moon. On
the other hand, there are many things we believe
which are matters of intense personal conviction.

Faith affords a person with confidence and the
capacity to promise.
When a person makes a promise to another
person he is saying "You have faith in me because I can be trusted. "Faih, then is
a condition of one's ability to promise
dependably and unconditonally.
"My word is my bond" expresses this assurance.
Faith in God is the conviction that the desires
of the universe, of mankind and each individual,
are ultimately controlled by eternal and living
goodness which, because it is eternal, is utterly
stable, invariable and unfailing.
Faith in God is also the conviction that we may
enter now into communion with the living
eternal Goodness.

To reiterate, the faith of the unbeliever and the
believer have trust. This maybe described as
confidence in the integrity and surety of the
person or thing.
Only a person who has faith in himself can have
faith in another person. Having faith in oneself
is awareness of the uniqueness of one's
personality which is unchangeable and which maintains itself thoughout
a lifetime in spite of circumstances, changes in opinions and feelings. It is the basis of the "I"
from which I have conviction of my own
identity. This is the "I" that can never be other
essentially than the "I." Paul Tillich speaks poignantly to this point when he says, 
"Faith is not a phenomenon beside others, but
the central phenomenon in man's personal
life manifested and hidden at the same time. It is
religious and transcends religion, it is universal
and concrete, it is infinitely variable and always
the same."

The faith of an unbeliever, i.e., a person who
does not believe in God, even if he believes 
that God lives, which may very well be, only
assent, and the faith of the believer who
believes in God does not differ, insofar as 
the attitude of mind or intensity of commitment
are concerned. With both the unbeliever and believer faith is a matter of ultimate concern.   The difference betwen them seems to lie less in the faith than in the object and the attitude 
toward the object of the faith. Some people today believe with conviction in Communism or
race superiority. Religious faith is no different
from other philosophies, ideologies and convictions by which men live. Each
person must have a "faith principle" which, no matter how self-evident it be to its believers,
is not self-evident to others. What destinguishes the faith of the believer from the faith of the unbeliever is, unlike the unbeliever, he has faith in his Creator. This is faith that has a DNA connection rooted in the soul connection between man and God that existed before he was born, after he was born and will continue to exist after he sheds mortality.

Faith is power. For the believer his whole system of living is based on a faith-centered rather than say, a legalistic way of being or religion. Faith in God transcends not only religion, it transcends man. Namely, faith consists of four components:
discernment which enables a person to choose
wisely; motivation which propels him to act which may mean wait; actualization which brings
into fruition what has been discerned to be good,
and surrender expressed succinctly in the axiom, "Don't swim, float."

                    Faith Can Do It
If you got the faith, for a certainty you got the trust.
Mere faith, mere trust; full faith, full trust.
With faith in God you have the conviction that
everything is ultimately controlled by Him and
that you may enter now into communion with
the eternal  living and eternal Goodness.
What experiene, skill and perseverance cannot do,
faith can do it;
What popularity, connection and privilege cannot
do,
faith can do it.
What wealth, power and possessions cannot do,
faith can do it;
What love, hope and truth cannot do,
faith can do it.
Faith is the principal thing to be applied in
achieving that which appears to be impossible;
Nothing is more idiosyncratic and strictly personal than a person's faith;
So, never compare your faith with another person's faith.
It's your faith, and if it is in God, you trust God:
faith can do it.

{This discourse is an extrapolation of faith as
presented in the book, "Mutuality: The Full Life
Process," by Uriah J. Fields, pp. 16-18}

Copyright 2011 by Uriah J. Fields

An Invitation:
I invite you to read an article I wrote after I attended the Dedication of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial in Washington D.C on October 16. The article is titled: "The E Pluribus Unum Dedication of Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial. Click on www.uriahfields.com. Next click on "Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial.