By Nimroth Gwetsa, 09 March 2015

The power of belief could be likened to using atomic energy in overcoming challenges. Its potency could transform abilities of ordinary human beings to extraordinary levels. Failures in our advancement could be overcome by exercising more faith.

Belief powerfully propels our hope to overcoming challenges and increases our expectations of a better future outcome. Without belief, there would be no hope but despair.

To what extent could our failure to achieve our developmental, financial or any other goals be due to weaknesses in our belief in envisioned goals?

Instinct vs Belief
Our response to ordinary events could be instinctive, unplanned and purely influenced by our senses. Since the mind is central to every seen or unseen bodily activity, our instinctive responses reflect our “inborn beliefs”. Belief is wired in our brains just as a computer chip is to a circuit board. It is ingrained in us forming part of our DNA. Our beliefs are set in our psyche through exposure to and performance of regular activities.

Like knowledge, beliefs can be developed. Its development starts from our instinctive and spontaneous responses and develops further when we gain more knowledge and experience. Common sense and intuition are derived from knowledge gained from our experiences.

The greatest of all beliefs is to believe in the extraordinary, the unknowns and the unseen, yet maintaining those beliefs without being ignorant. Such belief usually goes against common sense and “known-knowns” [1] thus increasing our hope in future manifestation of envisioned goals. This belief should be distinguished from faith founded on ignorance.

Belief defined
The belief in the extraordinary is about the mind focusing on future situations yet to materialise. Such belief is not blind faith based on ignorance.

Faith coupled with ignorance could be likened to foolishness, best described by a saying attributed to Einstein that, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

The belief in the unseen founded on some knowledge is the subject of this article. This belief is the faith described in the Book of Hebrews 11:1 as, “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.“

Impact of belief in overcoming challenges
By logical deduction, without the belief described in the Book of Hebrews, there would be no success in overcoming life’s challenges faced. Without faith, there is disbelief and doubt. Disbelief is the source of discouragement. Discouragement could result in abandonment leading to failure. As faith and doubt are opposites, increasing one decreases the other.

Complex challenges need greater faith to resolve them. The impact of the extent of challenges on the need for faith is illustrated in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1 – Impact of the extent of challenges, appropriateness, effectiveness and clarity of related solutions and success

Overcoming doubt
Doubt intensifies as ambiguities rise. Faith then would be intensified with an increase in certainty. But unknowns are (by definition), uncertain.

By regularly reflecting on our beliefs in and exploring unknowns; seeing the vision of the resolution of our challenges; and having the conviction to realise our vision, we would be causing our beliefs to become part of our second nature. When our beliefs are firmly ingrained in our psyche, we would achieve the highest potency in overcoming our challenges. Victory in overcoming challenges starts in the mind. Reality of life proves the truthfulness of this statement.

For example, standing and making a dash could be a natural and instinctive activity for most able-bodied adults. A toddler or disabled person might be overwhelmed by the activity. Our faith should increase through regular exercise or by observing experiences of others.

We need to exercise our faith to overcome challenges. Faith is the currency needed for success. Our failures could sometimes be attributed to imbalances in our responses to challenges and faith exercised.

For example, some may have the knowledge of what needs to be done, but lack the faith and courage of doing it, thus experience failure. Others may have too much faith but not founded on any knowledge or are ignorant of other facts and realities, thus also suffer losses despite their faith.

Knowledge and belief
The basis of all beliefs is knowledge. Wisdom is gained when knowledge is applied. Wisdom increases our confidence and by implication, reduces our doubt. Like real numbers, knowledge is infinite. Even if knowledge was limited, there would still be opportunities for “new knowledge” to be developed, showing that knowledge is infinite. As our beliefs are founded in knowledge, we need to invest in gaining more knowledge and applying it so we could limit chances of failure and doubt. What would be the point of gaining knowledge without applying it? More lessons are learned in the application of knowledge.

Even if failure is the outcome of actions taken in faith and founded on sound knowledge, wisdom would still be gained. In failure, there would still be “knew knowledge” derived from lessons learned from those experiences.

Risk and reward from belief
Usually when things go swimmingly, we fail to consider the inevitability of the occurrence of failure later in life. We often think light shines forever, and even if it did, our days would still include night and day and would go through different seasons. These changes reflect the importance of having time for work and for rest.

We would have exposure to challenges in our lifetime. We would need to believe there is a way out of those challenges. Challenges do not refer only to problems, but opportunities also. Problems and opportunities enable us to exercise our faith. We would thus never stop being confronted with challenges. Those challenges could be problems we need to overcome or opportunities we need to pursue. Because doing nothing is also an activity, although with possible undesirable results, we should ensure our activities are productive.

Great rewards are the outcomes of overcoming challenges. Failure is, in a different context, success if lessons learnt from such failure could be turned to opportunities and shared with others.

Reasons for being faithful
To those struggling with challenges, do not despair. Giving up is also faith, but it could be the unproductive faith. Giving up is the belief that better results would be achieved by abandoning the current course (of action). Indeed, if better knowledge indicating that worthy results could be achieved by changing course, then such change would be good.

Problems arise when faith is trampled by unbelief. Unbelief is not about lacking or having little faith. Unbelief is refusal to believe despite having the knowledge and evidence confirming the validity of issues concerned. Unbelief can be likened to believing in lies.

Encouragement
Let your faith in your imagined resolutions to your challenges be productive. The productivity increased by the application of knowledge gained from diverse age-old proven reputable sources.

When faced with challenges, reflect on your needs and the importance and compelling reasons to act in resolving them. Have some faith in your good expectations without ignoring warning signs of potential pitfalls. Act and continuously learn from your experiences and share your lessons.

Where there is life, there would be setbacks. And setbacks should not extinguish our atomic energy of our faith.

Go on, be a conqueror of your most faith wrenching challenges. Your reward will be greater. Do not forget that life depends on challenges being overcome.

Best wishes.

[1] Borrowed from the famous expression from Donald Rumsfeld, the then US Secretary of Defense