The Power of Faith

"By the power of faith every enduring work is accomplished. Faith in the Supreme, faith in the overruling Law; faith in your work, and in your power to accomplish that work - here is the rock upon which you must build if you would achieve, if you would stand and not fall." - Path to Prosperity

James Allen makes a pretty bold claim: "By the power of faith every enduring work is accomplished." He doesn't say some enduring works or many enduring works, but EVERY enduring work.

A Duke University research study, among many others, found a link between religious faith and illness prevention, coping and recovery. Those with a strong faith tended to be ill less often and when they were ill tended to recover more quickly. We all know stories of people who experienced some type of miracle in their life because they had the faith all along that they would.

In Think and Grow Rich, the number one success classic of all time, Napoleon Hill wrote the following about the power of faith: "Faith is the "eternal elixir" which gives life, power and action to the impulse of thought! Faith is the starting point of all accumulation of riches! Faith is the basis of all "miracles" and all mysteries which cannot be analyzed by the rules of science! Faith is the only known antidote for failure!"

Realize that the only things that can keep us from having the kind of faith that Allen and Hill describe are fear, doubt and worry. These are the opposites of faith.

Fear that your car won't start this morning, that you're going to be in the next group of layoffs, that you can't possibly save enough now to retire. Doubts that you'll ever own that business you've always wanted, that your children will grow into happy, well adjusted adults. Worry that you won't have enough money to make it until the end of the month, that the medical test is going to come back with bad news. The list goes on and on.

Fear, doubt and worry rob us of a real life and keep us from moving forward. But more than anything, they rob us of faith - and without faith we are powerless.

How do we overcome fear, doubt and worry in order to maintain faith? Hill says that "Repetition of affirmations of orders to your subconcious mind is the only known method of voluntary development of the emotion of faith." In other words, we can literally think and talk ourselves into faith just as easily as we think and talk ourselves into fear, doubt and worry.

And that's worth thinking about.

- Vic Johnson


-- Posted from my iPhone