Not-so Unconditional Faith

I was talking to Jayesh about how faith in God should be independent of the joys and misery God puts us through, that Faith should not be conditional. I scorned people who did otherwise. But after the conversation, I got off my judgmental horse and realised that I was talking pure idealism that even I (gasp!) have not matched up to.

Most human relationships are conditional. We love because we are loved. We help because we are comfortable.  We feed because we are well fed.  I am not making sense am I?  Oh dear, let me try and explain. Did you ever feed someone - a beggar, your child, mother, whoever - when you were going hungry? Do you love your family/partner/dog without expecting something in return? Did you ever donate your (not your dad's, mom's, ancestral) money to a cause you believed in when money was hard to come by? Perhaps not all of us have been in such situations, so lets just simply ask, have you been unconditional? That one glorious shining moment when you realised that right there, in that one microsecond of your 25/45/80 years of your existence, you have been unconditional?

I have examined myself a little. I have faith in God because by and large he has been generous to me. I love my family as they put up with all the torture one goes through to have me around. I donate because I have no great desire to own things with money. So, I suppose, life has been kind enough to allow me the luxury to be an armchair idealist, discussing unconditional faith in God. Others might not. When one goes through what the biblical Job has gone through, one has the right to judge the nature of someone else's belief. Till then, I probably should shut it, and let people believe in God for their own reasons. One's faith is one's private affair.

I apologise. Sincerely.