The Hidden Power of Faith
The world is a strange place right now. Division in America, terror in Iran, continuing wars in Ukraine and Gaza. Homelessness, illness, natural disasters, crime, and injustice almost everywhere.
Yet even when our world is broken, the one topic we rarely discuss is faith. It feels too intangible and unscientific for many of us.
It’s impossible for me to tell my story without including the strength my faith gave me. I would not have survived without it. Even if it all turns out to be untrue, it was still worth it. It gave me a strength I could never have found on earth.
When I speak to a corporate audience, I’m conscious that if I mention the word “God,” many of them will want to run from the room. So I like to explain my faith in a very practical way.
Just before my surgery, the elephant in the room was that I might die. I needed a plan. My fight would only be as strong as its weakest link, and part of that fight had to be that I wasn’t afraid to die.
I soon discovered that if you are not afraid to die, there is nothing left to be afraid of.
So one evening, lying in my hospital bed, I put myself to the test. I simply looked at the world around me. Nothing more than that.
And what did I see?
I saw oceans and mountains and rivers and magnificent creatures of all kinds. I saw a sun that just happens to rise every morning to give us light to live and set every evening to give us darkness to rest. I saw stars and moons and galaxies that stretch far beyond anything we can imagine.
Then I looked at us.
Most of us can barely make a decent cup of coffee. The best of us make several mistakes a day. The worst of us commit the most unimaginable atrocities.
And I came to a very simple, personal conclusion:
We can’t have made all this.
There has to be something greater.
Once you cross that line, anything is possible and nothing is impossible, because this world is no longer in control.
We are all different, but we share a common desire to be happy. We search for love and peace and cherish our families. Even the worst people still want to be happy.
So the greater force—whatever it is—can only be a source of good. That longing for goodness is the natural instinct in all of us.
Yet even when our world is broken, the one topic we rarely discuss is faith. It feels too intangible and unscientific for many of us.
From the evidence all around us, the happiness we seek is not fully here, at least not for any great length of time. When we find it, it doesn’t tend to last. No matter how good things are, illness, accident, separation, bankruptcy, grief, or natural disaster can be just around the corner. The world will always be one step ahead.
But one day, everything has to make perfect sense. We are all too complex and have come too far for it not to be so. There has to be a world waiting for us with no war, no illness, no violence, no loneliness, no pressure of work, no human trafficking, no mourning, no heartbreak.
Nothing else makes sense.
Our job, until then, is to live the best lives we can. That is the basic instinct in all of us. The natural law will always be a good law.
My cancer knew that evening it was in for the long haul. Whether it was now or later, I was not afraid.
My fight was now untouchable. There was nothing to hold it back, and I wouldn’t have survived without that release.
A lot of its strength came from the realization that this is just a very short run. The timing is important, but in the end, it won’t make that much difference. There has to be more to come.
Nothing else makes sense.
And everything I have seen in this world ever since has only made that view even stronger.
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