The phrase “Use it or lose it” will be very familiar to anyone who has had physiotherapy and has been encouraged to use their joints. Despite the pain this may bring, they know that the patient will eventually lose the capacity to use the joint, if they allow it to fall into disuse.

Sometimes the same phrase can be applied to the use of the gift of faith. If we allow our faith to fall into disuse, then gradually it will become less meaningful in our lives. We don’t necessarily lose our belief, but we do create a vacuum and our reliance on the love of God, will be missing from our lives. There was a time when you could walk into any hospital ward and spend some time observing the nurses at work and distinguish between those for whom nursing was a career and those for whom it was a vocation. The latter group would demonstrate an empathy with their patients and their suffering and concerns. They would give of their time to encourage them and replace hope and frustration with love and care. Unfortunately, in our present health service we have fewer nurses per ward who don’t have time to properly care for their patients as they would like to and many patients die alone.

Do we also have a vocation, to give of our time and our prayers, to encourage people?

Do we try to replace despair with hope and frustration with the love of God?

Is it easy to distinguish us as Christians as we go about our daily lives?

Are we in fact using our faith, or losing it?