Faith in Everyday Life

In the words of the Apostle Paul, faith is “The confident reassurance concerning what we hope for, and the conviction about things we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1). Faith produces true knowledge of a spiritual reality that can only be understood and believed through spiritual insight. Knowing and believing without perceiving the reality before us with our five senses, then, is faith. For the believer, faith is found in all things throughout the day, every day.

It is 5 in the morning. The alarm goes off. It is time to get up and start a new day. But a nagging thought creeps into your head that you should stay in bed a little longer. Because you have been in this situation numerous times and know from experience that your day will not be the same if you surrender to this impulse, you resolve to get up, as you should.

Later, as your spouse is busy getting the children ready to go to school, you call them to breakfast. As usual, one of the kids is behind schedule, another refuses to eat the breakfast you have prepared, and another reveals to you he needs your help with an assignment due the following day. You shuffle the children into the car and speed away to one school to drop off your oldest children, and another school for the little one. Now as your wife is busy getting ready for work, you call to remind her about basketball practice after school.

When you arrive at the office, you learn that the head of the front office is not coming to work, and the computers in two of the 10 patients rooms are not working. Before business hours, a patient has already left an urgent message for you to call her back. Though you have arrived on time to work, your day has been set back by unexpected problems that you must resolve with the help of your office manager. When the real work starts and you begin seeing a wide variety of patients with various medical conditions, you find that some of them are complaining for trivial reasons. While the whole office staff is busy caring for patients, there are several interruptions, with calls from other doctors or patients, interference from pharmaceutical representatives, reports of unusual findings from X-ray or ultrasound technicians, questions from colleagues, and more. By lunch time, despite your best efforts, you find that you are still behind, so you must shorten your break, sneak in a quick bite to eat, and prepare for the afternoon rush.

After the briefest of lunches, you see a patient bound to a wheelchair because of physical deformities. She communicates by typing on a keyboard with a speaker. She is followed by a 68-year-old legally blind man, who has come with a walker. His blood pressure is out of control. You tend to him, call in his medications to his pharmacy, order a new walker with a seat for him, and arrange his transportation back home. Both patients require extra time, patience, and care because of their exceptional circumstances. You find that it is only through faith that you are able to deliver the best possible care to these patients. You view them as opportunities to put into practice the purpose of your beliefs. After all, “Faith without work is dead.” (James 2:26). Faith requires work and effort for the love of the other.

By evening, your workday behind you, you take a moment to catch up on the news. It is more of the same: an escalation in crime and seemingly deadlocked bipartisan politics. You are distressed by the amount of misinformation that is reported, but you are hopeful that things will gradually improve with time. You recall the words of Pope Francis: “Faith is not a light which scatters all our darkness, but a lamp which guides our steps in the night and suffices for the journey.”

You are tired, but as the head of the house you must devote time to your children, helping with their school assignments, speaking with them, answering their questions, and helping your wife with some duties around the house. Finally, before your day is over, you take some time to pray, thanking the Lord for this day, examining your thoughts, words, and actions. You ask that He pardon you for your faults, and resolve with His grace to become the best-version-of-yourself.

In dealing with the turbulence of everyday life, I am reminded that my vocation as a physician requires me to be generous with myself and give my energy, expertise, and time to others in need of medical attention—that I am present to serve the patients in front of me. It is my purpose to help others. I remember that I am conscious despite perceiving the present reality with my senses, and I have the spiritual insight of my faith—a faith which is not merely a simple choice to believe or not to believe, but rather an interior revelation from God to which I give my consent to accept the things I receive each day with the light of the gift of faith. In other words, I have the conviction that I am doing God’s will by fulfilling my daily ordinary tasks with extraordinary care, in a way perceptible to my whole person, though not my individual senses.

In difficult times both in and out of the workplace, we may question whether it is worthwhile maintaining our faith. The answer, of course, is that it is in fact exactly in the face of adversity that faith can benefit us the most, for even in the darkest of times and the bleakest of moments, we have reason to await a better tomorrow. Faith is a gift, but it requires work and effort to cultivate, because it is a practical expression of oneself and one’s will, trusting in the divine Providence.

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