Faith

Faith means believing in something you can't see. It comes in all varieties. you can have faith in yourself, faith in others, or faith that through hard work good things will happen. For example, you have faith that by cutting out junk food and exercising you will lose weight. Faith causes you to act. Without it, there's nothing to hope for.

There's yet another kind of faith that's increasingly important to many teens - faith in spiritual things.

Did you know that your brain is hard-wired to connect spiritually? Babies yearn to be held and teenagers hunger for meaning and spirituality. At least that was the conclusion of 33 experts from the nonpartisan Commision on Children at Risk, which researched why kids today are in crisis. In their report, "Hard-wired to Connect," they concluded that our brains are yearning for spiritual meaning, and listed spiritual and religious development as one of the ten marks of an ideal community. Interesting, huh?

Of course, everyone believes differently and that's okay. But study after study has shown that faith or religious involvement of some sort can build self-worth in teens. Why's that? Faith can:

• help you connect to something bigger than yourself
• provide you with standards to live by
• help you overcome negative peer pressure
• give you a sense of identity and belonging

Compiled From:
"The 6 Most Important Decisions You'll Ever Make" - Sean Covey, p. 280