Faith is a gift

I never really considered myself to be a very religious person. While my family does value the teachings of Buddhism and my parents adhere to its general practices while my brother and I tag along, I have, admittedly only the most basal understanding of the religion till today. I never had any reason to doubt the existence of God, and when occasional turbulent days do surface, I felt that there was no harm offering up a little prayer for wisdom and courage; I prayed, but to no God in particular. I guess this makes me a free-thinker as I always considered myself to be -- I'm not searching for a faith but I draw faith based on my own experiences and relationships and in the process of doing so, I still remain open to exploring the beliefs of the distinguishing religions around. The thing about faith is that it is truly an intriguing and powerful thing, it is also a deeply convoluted system. I've seen how it lifts the lives of people, how genuinely happy they seem, the liberation felt with the knowledge that there is a plan for everyone who believes. But this quite inadvertently led me to question instead -- maybe we just have this intrinsic need to believe? Perhaps circumstances just lead us to different sources of faith. 

And I guess turning to faith to reaches out to others in the most subtle, intangible of ways when nothing else can that many attribute their successes to God, and this area in particular is something I feel I never really figured out myself. Part of the reason why is probably because I've had the fortune of never having to tide through events that were consequentially hard and I've always been a firm believer of individual effort and faith that things will eventually resolve themselves as long as we had the fortitude to move on. It's my own observation though, that many of those who are devoted believers have had at some point in their lives, been put through an unimaginable journey of tribulations and pulled themselves back up while placing their faith in God at a time where they had nothing (especially themselves) to believe in. It's a different story for me however, because what makes me whole is the through the love I get from my family members, close friends -- a different kind of faith, but still a faith of sorts nonetheless. 

I see the beauty in the fundamental teachings of each individual religion, they're unique in their own way and meaningful no doubt. I gladly accept many of the values each faith attempt to impart, but I just find it hard to subscribe to any one religion, at the moment and perhaps in future as well. Life just seems like a great amalgamation of varying degrees of what we belief is in the end, it really is a journey of constant self-discovery. I never actually delved very deeply into this topic of faith until only recently and well, thinking it to this extent kind of clears the fog a little. As for now I remain as an avid observer with the observation that faith is in itself, a treasured gift.