Faith

The Woman's Word

I warn you against weak, passive, dependent faith, for it is worse than unbelief.

How great a word it is!! It demolishes thrones and raises the paupers of mankind and their servant-boys to the rank of caesars and kings...

How magnificent a word!! In it is such pride and defiance as is in the solid rocks of the mountains. And in it is such depth and reach as is in the deeps of the seas — treasures and secrets.

In it is such meekness and purity as is in the hearts of virgins — purity and clearness.

And in it is such awe and majesty as is in God — awe and majesty.

And what power can stand against an army whose heart is filled with faith?

No believer has ever been forsaken who believed with true, deep faith in his Lord, and felt that his Lord is the Lord of goodness and giving, that He is in Himself love and sacrifice and beauty; and no believer has been forsaken who believed with conscious faith in himself, and knew that his soul teems with great powers that can be directed and disciplined in the service of the common good, and that as a human being he must live for the sake of this common good.

Nor has any nation been forsaken that had faith in its right, and faith in the greatness and sanctity of that right.

Experience has proven that faith is stronger than iron and fire, stronger than torments and pains, stronger than displacement and exile and persecution.

It has proven this in the individuals who stood against the powers of falsehood and overcame them in the battle of truth and creed. And it has proven it in the frail, weak communities that fight for their right against torrents of death pouring down upon them from earth and sky — and overcome them, and triumph.

And we in this country — how feeble faith is in our souls! It has grown so gaunt and thin that its bones show through. How weak our souls are in the face of life and its troubles and its problems; every great power within us has collapsed. We meet one of life's hardships — and how many are the hardships of life — and we fall back in terror, our souls broken and spent. A misfortune befalls one of us, and it crushes his strength and dries him up, and he sits in the corners, cowering, gaunt, wailing. Our people and our country face a danger — like this Zionist danger which crouches at the gates of our houses in Lebanon — and we panic, and the spirit of defeat creeps into us, and the weak of faith spread through our streets peddling defeat and shame... And we call out among the people, saying: we have lost the battle, so why fight it as a losing one? And we do not know that we have not lost the battle — we have lost the honor which is the real battle between us and the powers gathered against us.

If we had faith, we would know that it is for honor that we fight, and not only for victory. For victory is not always honor, and death may at times be more honorable than victory.

We in this country have lost the most precious thing in our lives, and we have replaced our faith with nothing — not even with unbelief; for unbelief itself is strong, and in us there is much weakness and slackness. And we have lost God, our greatest spiritual stronghold, so our souls have gone dark, and we have come to live in a wilderness of doubt and suspicion.

Everything in our lives needs faith: our souls, our country — our very prayer needs a depth of faith. For we worship God with our lips and not with our hearts; and if we had one atom of faith, our lives would not be parched and barren as they are today, and we would not be carrying this great inheritance of national misfortunes — ignorance and fanaticism and weakness and failure.

O children of my country:

The land in which you live is the cradle of the first great faith, and your great men were the first to spread it through the earth as justice and truth and strength — so do not close your hearts against it.

Return it to your hearts, and with it will return your happiness and the peace of your hearts.

Believe in yourselves; do not think that you are weak. Believe in your homeland, and that your cause is a cause of truth and justice, whatever your cause may be, and do not fear defeat, for victory belongs always to the believers. And believe in God; believe in His great name and do not lose it from your hearts, for once you have lost it you have lost everything. And do not think that without God you can make anything great in life, for those who have lost God from their lives — their whole lives have been lost, and they have not been able to bring forth any great thing.

And I warn you against relying upon God in all your works — expecting God to bring our daily bread to our empty houses, and health to our sick bodies, and dignity to our enslaved homelands. ('Rise, My servant, that I may rise with you,' God says to us.) For if we sit idle in the corners, neither our bread will come to us, nor our health, nor the dignity of our homelands.

And I warn you against the weak, flimsy, passive faith, for it is worse than unbelief; it is worse than the misfortunes that make our lives poor and gaunt — nay, it is the whole misfortune and the whole shame. Let our faith be a comprehending mind and an enlightened heart; the comprehending faith is the true faith, and it is the ultimate faith that brings us near to God.