FAITH-LIFTOnce a person prayed to God, "Please give me a flowerand a butterfly for my garden". When he opened hiseyes, he found a cactus and a caterpillar instead. Hewas dismayed and wondered why God had misunderstoodhis request. "Maybe God has too many people to carefor," he rationalized and decided not to complain.After some time, when he went back to the garden, hefound, to his surprise, that the unsightly caterpillarhad transformed into a charming butterfly and thethorny, ugly cactus had a beautiful, fragrant floweron it.Moral: God always answers our prayers, but often Hisanswers manifest as per His supremely wise time andplan, not ours. God always gives the best to those wholeave the choices to Him. But leaving the choices toGod is almost impossible unless we tap the power offaith within us. Faith is innate to us; one of ourfirst life-sustaining activities in life is based onfaith. After birth, when our mother lovingly offers usher breast-milk, we drink it promptly without doubt. Aresearch conducted to simulate the conversion of 'onepiece of bread into blood' found that the industry forit extended to three kilometers! The conclusion: thework that we do in our entire lifetime for oursurvival is less than the work required to convert ahandful of food into blood inside our body. TheBhagavad-gita ( 15.14) confirms that God sustains ourlife through the mechanism of digestion. But as wegrow up, that faith of the heart is often obscured bythe undesirable emotions - especially by sorrow,illusion and fear, which misdirect our consciousness,as stated in the Shrimad Bhagavatam ( 1.7.7). Sorrowmakes us look behind - at all that has gone wrong inour life, illusion makes us look around – for someinstant gratification to forget everything that hasgone wrong and worry makes us look ahead - toeverything that may go wrong in the future. Faithalone empowers us to look up - to see the benevolenthand of God guiding us out of our problems, tounderstand that everything is actually alright even ifit appears wrong,When we are faced with adversities, as is inevitablein this world, our peace and happiness will depend noton our wealth, but our faith.However, if our perceptions are dominated by amaterialistic conception of religion, "God is meant toprovide me material enjoyment", we often blindourselves to God's benevolence. We are intrinsicallyspiritual beings and without spiritual devotion forGod, nothing can make us happy, just as a fish cannotlive without water. Of course we need material thingsin life and God wants to provide those too; but not ifthey distract us from our eternal spiritual legacy inthe kingdom of God . God is thus like a father, whoseentire estate is ultimately meant for his son, but whomay stop or decrease even his son's pocket money, ifhe sees his son squandering it in addictiveindulgences. How can we increase our faith in God? TheVedic scriptures explain that hearing the message ofthe Lord as revealed in the sacred scriptures from Hisdedicated devotees and chanting His Holy Namesstrengthens our faith. Hence this divinely upliftingassociation of spiritual scientists constitutes a"faith-lift".So when things apparently go wrong and our heartsbecome wrinkled by anxiety, let's go in, not for aface-lift comprising of artificial smiles, but for a"faith-lift". Then instead of jumping to short-sightedconclusions and falling into the ditch of ignorantdistress, we will find ourselves taking aleap of faith into the protective arms of God.
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