Living Faith
Living faith in God means seeing God as having limitless powers. One who finds such a God does not remain the same person as before having had this experience.
One way to see a lion is to look at a stuffed one in a museum. The other way is to see it alive, roaming in the jungle. The one in the museum is just a skin, stuffed and propped up to make it look as if it is alive and standing. Outwardly, it appears like a lion, but it is a lion in form only. People look at such a ‘lion’ only for instruction or for recreation. No one feels frightened of it. No one feels the need to run away from it.
However, the lion of the jungle is a very different matter. It is a living thing, a symbol of strength. When it stalks its prey, the whole jungle becomes alarmed. When it roars, the animals are terror-stricken and rush to take refuge up in trees. When a human being sees a live lion in the jungle, he trembles from head to toe. He begins to lose control of himself. He is not as he was before seeing the lion.
This is an example that helps us to understand God. Belief in God also has two forms. One is faith through imitation, that is, just following in the footsteps of our ancestors, while the other is a living faith in God, i.e., a faith discovered, or acquired, on our own.
Faith through imitation is bound to be a dead faith. Such faith falls short of stirring up one’s soul. It does not have the force of a current running through one’s veins. It does not create any movement within. This dead faith requires a man only to believe in God without fearing Him.
However, living faith in God is an entirely different matter. Living faith in God means seeing God as having limitless powers. One who finds such a God does not remain the same person as before having had this experience. After the realization of God, his whole existence is completely shaken up. His soul is terror-stricken; his fear is intense. All other problems are completely overshadowed. He is now concerned with one thing alone, and that is God.
A living belief in God and fear of God are inseparable. The moment these become separate, true faith ceases to exist. It is then a dead, not a living, faith. Moreover, dead faith is of no value either to man or God.
