On a whim…

Belief, faith, and experience are often confused, but they are not the same.

Belief is assent of the mind—accepting doctrines or creeds. It gives structure, but can become brittle. Faith is entrustment of the heart—leaning one’s life into God, even without proof or reward. It endures when belief falters. Experience is lived encounter—moments of grief, beauty, or awe that ground us in reality and sometimes surprise us with grace.

Each on its own is incomplete. Belief without experience grows sterile. Experience without belief becomes chaotic. Faith without experience risks turning into grim endurance.

But when the three converge—belief giving shape, experience giving weight, and faith sustaining trust—we find something resilient enough to face both desolation and amazement.

For me, in the long illness and death of my wife, it was not belief that carried me, nor even faith as I had once preached it. It was experience—a haunting sense of pervasive good in a world otherwise hostile—that became the soil where faith could live.