The Transferrable Skills of Faith

I spent the day in a workshop with military personnel who are about to transition out the service. The task of figuring out how their abilities and experience translate into the civilian world is daunting. Determining transferrable skills is the name of the game.

‘Got me to thinking about faith. (Don’t ask me how I made that leap.) Is faith transferrable – not like from one person to another; rather from a potentially irrelevant understanding to one that matters, makes sense, and actually applies?

Here’s the problem (or at least one of them): faith as a word, a theological precept, or even a flashback to our own or others’ ancient systems of belief, no longer feels relevant to many of us, to our lives, to our world. But here’s where I think about those military men and women with whom I spent my day. They are pretty darn certain that their skills aren’t relevant either, that they’ve been in a system that has trained them (maybe like our religious upbringing) but now feel like they’re flailing – with little left to hold on to. Faith can feel that way – at least our limited understanding of such. Maybe then, in both camps, determining transferrable skills is the key.

So what are faith’s transferrable skills? In the job-search process, we take experiences we have had and translate them into language that “fits” and makes sense in a new context. And in this context? It’s taking our old “understanding” of faith (including its language) and imagining ways in which it might just make sense and actually have meaning, weight, and substance…something to hold on to.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

(Hebrews 11:1)

I like this verse actually, but here’s the thing: there are a zillion more ways to think about and apply it than I was originally taught (translate: transferrable skills). How about these assurances of things hoped or and conviction of things not seen:

Every time I practice self-belief.

Every time I step out confidently and risk, believing that I can actually have the future I desire.

Every time I publish a blog post with the certainty that others will read it and find something of value in the words, concepts, ideas, and thoughts.

Every time I go yet one more month without fulltime pay/benefits and trust that the path I’ve chosen will actually bear fruit!

Here’s another:

For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.

(Matthew 17:20-21)

More transferrable skills – mountains moved:

Every time I take on a challenge that seems daunting, crazy, and yes, impossible.

Every time I say “no” to the easy answer and choose instead to follow my gut, my intuition, my know-that-I-know-that-I-know sense.

Every time I risk my heart on love.

Every time I hit “publish” on a blog post or “send” on a proposal, believing I have the capacity to change the world!

Every time I choose to be bold and tell the truth – no matter what!

The dictionary says this:

(1): belief and trust in and loyalty to God (2): belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion (3): firm belief in something for which there is no proof (4): complete trust

Closer, but even this doesn’t seem enough. I need a faith that’s transferrable!

Truth-be-told, I don’t know how to not have faith; how to not inculcate its transferability. It’s not something relegated to my past or my old(er) understandings of religion, spirituality, and theology. Rather, it’s relevant, constant, potent, and real. And it’s constantly being proven, stretched, expanded, and tested.

For me, faith is a way of life. It’s stepping into the day-to-day aspects of life and love, relationships, parenting, paying bills, working, being. It’s consistently choosing to believe in more than can be seen, defined or proven. It’s a tenacious clinging to hope no matter how seemingly foolish or risky. It’s the choice to risk much – and all the time. It’s scrapping, fighting, and clawing for goodness and truth and beauty – in myself and in my world when every message tells me to give in, to compromise, to settle.

It’s not about finding the transferrable skills of faith. it’s about understanding faith as a transferrable skill in and of itself. It impacts everything. It changes everything. It is everything.

Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof.

(Kahlil Gibran)

To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.

(Thomas Aquinas)

Faith is not trying to believe something regardless of the evidence; faith is daring something regardless of the consequences.

(Sherwood Eddy)

Tagged as: confidence, courage, faith, risk, truth-telling

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