Another book on faith is the last thing this world needs. There has already been a mountain of material written on the subject. So when a full time Christian worker suggested that I write a book on faith, I had just smiled.

But the thought kept entering my mind for many years. I had the impression that God wanted me to do it, but I kept telling him that I would only do it if I had something truly unique and life changing to share.

After becoming a Christian in my early teens, I have seen and experienced many miracles. I have seen God make the impossible possible. Instantaneous healing, deliverance from demonic possession, and countless situational miracles have become regular occurrences. But there are already many good books out there regarding these things.

In early 2006, my son Henry was sent home from school with a notice from the teacher that he had punched and bitten his kindergarten classmate. This came as a shock since he was an extremely gentle and non-violent child. When we asked him about the incident, he said that he had not fought his classmate but a giant green hideous monster with scary eyes. Henry was fully convinced that he had been protecting himself and his friends. It took quite a bit of talk and logical reasoning to get him to understand that that was not the case and that he needed to apologize to his classmate.

After much discussion, my husband and I realized that Henry wasn’t lying about what he saw. But later, Henry understood that what he saw was a lie. This may seem confusing at first. Well, it really confused us.

At the same time, some of my other children (I have five) were also seeing things that weren’t there, imagining offenses, and remembering things that never happened. It was beginning to cause trouble within the house.

My husband felt that I somehow held the key to the solution. He observed that I had the same problem of having a different reality from what was actually happening. I would recall events loaded with emotion that wasn’t really there, read different meanings into words and actions, and see things that were not true. (I thought I was tall and skinny when I was five feet tall and overweight). But this problem of seeing things that really did not exist was multiplied and stronger in my kids.

So that night, I spent a lot of time in prayer –the kind of prayer that I call ‘wrestling with God’. I kept on asking him about what was going on and kept knocking at his gates until I got a response. A little after midnight I sensed a question in my spirit.

“What do you call the ability to see things that are not as if they were?”

The answer exploded in my heart. Faith.

Faith is being sure of what we hope for. It is being certain of what we do not see. –Hebrews 11:1 (NIV)

Faith is the God-given ability to see a different reality from what was going on in the earthly realm. What we see in turn affects our mind and reasoning. Faith then results in actions based on what we see and think.
However, what my children and I were seeing was a fake.

It was not the real thing. It was actually a perversion of the real thing, which is seeing the unseen as if it were visible. Our vision was not framed by the word of God, but by our own imaginations and lies. Real faith is based on hearing and obeying the word of God, while the fake is based on your desires, ambitions, somebody else’s ideas, goals, positive thinking, or anything that is influenced by human thinking and the force of darkness.

Although our situation may have seemed extreme, we realized that it was not unique to us. In varying degrees, people suffer from similar unrealistic ideas and practices of faith. Because of this fine line between fake and faith, it becomes hard for others to believe the good news and hard for us to believe that miracles and the supernatural can actually happen for us today.

With this understanding came much joy.

I had been worried that I had imparted something bad to my children with whom I am absolutely in love with. Instead, I realized that God had truly given them a gift of faith even greater than my own. The problems were arising due to perversions and lies, similar to what I myself was having difficulties with. Born of a desire to see my children unencumbered in their faith, my husband and I undertook a spiritual journey of deliverance in search of truth.

This book is a record of what we learned along the way.

We pray that you may experience the same glorious freedom that we are meant to experience when Christ set us free. May you accept the challenge to ‘get real’ and see real changes and victories happen. May the Holy Spirit give the grace to open our hearts and minds to truth that liberates and renews.

May you unleash the full potential of faith in God and His word in your life.

Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
–John 8:31-32 (NKJV)