Faith

There once was a man that lived by a river. He heard a radio report that the river was going to rush up and flood the town, and that all the residents should evacuate their homes. But the man said, 'I'm religious. I pray. God loves me. God will save me.'

The waters rose up. A guy in a row boat came along and he shouted, 'Hey, hey you! You in there. The town is flooding. Let me take you to safety.' But the man shouted back, 'I'm religious. I pray. God loves me. God will save me.'

A helicopter was hovering overhead. And a guy with a megaphone shouted, 'Hey you, you down there. The town is flooding. Let me drop this ladder and I'll take you to safety.' But the man shouted back that he was religious, that he prayed, that God loved him and that God will take him to safety.

Finally, the man drowned. And standing at the gates of St. Peter, he demanded an audience with God. 'Lord,' he said, 'I'm a religious man, I pray. I thought you loved me. Why did this happen?'

God said, 'I sent you a radio report, a helicopter, and a guy in a rowboat. What the hell are you doing here?'

Moral of the Story?

Belief in God alone will rarely augur a divine miracle or intervention to suddenly make things right. For life to get better, one needs to have true Faith:

to believe that God helps those who really wish to help themselves and not those who wallow in self-pity or wait for a savior;

to be wise enough to recognize that He exists in all the blessings one has in one's life and use those blessings to gather the strength to make things better, rather than continue to focus on all the things one doesn't have and bemoan how one has been forsaken;

to have the humility to accept responsibility for one's own mistakes, and the courage to make the difficult changes necessary to achieve happiness.

Once we show true Faith, God knows we are grateful and deserving of His bounty, and then He gives us the answers and makes the obstacles easier to cross.

But the path to Him begins with you.