Kevin Finley

Sept. 5th, 2007

Prof. Cox
Biblical Tradition

As I sit here munching on popcorn and contemplating my faith stance, I cannot

help but think of the screen in front of me. For the most part it is blank, open to whatever

the creator decides to fill the space with. I believe that faith follows this same basic

guideline. God has given us this screen, this canvas, this life. We can choose to do with

it whatever we want. Some of it may glorify God, and some of it does not. Either way it

was all created by the divine power of God. To me, faith is the basic understanding and

belief of something or someone that has the possibility of being false or non-existent.

I have faith in the human species. I believe that at our core, we are all innately

good. Yet by our environment and our individual experience something gets tweaked and

we become capable of hatred, anger, and murder. I have faith that God and Allah are one

in the same. I believe that that God’s likeness was lost in translation somewhere along

the way and that Allah came in His place. I have faith that we should not only celebrate

our similarities, but also our differences, we are each individually God’s fingerprint.

I believe that in order to go to heaven you have to believe in the creator of the

universe. I believe that not everyone believes in the same God I do, but they also have

the possibility of eternal life in heaven. I believe God created us in His image, and in

doing so, He also gave us a will. I can choose to write this paper or not, and I believe that

if I don’t I won’t get the points for it. I believe God gave us this amazing sense of

curiosity, and sometimes that curiosity can get into trouble. I believe in God, and I

believe that Jesus died for all the wretched stuff I have done, and will do in the future.
 In the summer of 2005, I went on trip that changed my life forever. In 2004, I met

this girl, and after some time she invited me to her church. After a few weeks of my

regular attendance, I found out about a Missions Trip to Peru in the summer of 2005.

Raising $1800 dollars is a lot harder than it sounded. I signed up and luckily made the

cut to go on the trip. I was part of a play, “The Champion”, I played the role of the

referee which was God. It was a boxing match between Satan and Jesus. Satan strikes

Jesus with such force to knock him to the ground. Reluctantly, I proceed to the 10-count.

When I get to nine, symbolically, Jesus rises and goes on to defeat Satan. We had a tape

that had the Spanish dialogue and music on it. We had to remember what to “mouth”,

such as the introductions and the 10-count. On the last night, our Tech advisor loaded up

the wrong tape. We had to act out the play with no words. I got such a strong sense of

God, people were acting as if they were at a real fight, they jumped for joy when Jesus

rose again. I was amazed at how God could speak through me and allow me to give these

people the greatest gift of all, salvation.

The trip to Peru is important to me because I got to see how different my faith is

from someone who believes in the exact same thing, they just live in a different part of

the world. I have faith in these things because I was raised that way. It is true that you

can live life without religion, but I highly doubt someone can live without faith. I live

my life only to serve God.