Belief vs. Faith

What is the difference between belief and faith, and also between faith and living faith? 

It would seem the primary difference between belief and faith is belief is intellectual whereas faith is spiritual and experiential. Because we can verbalize what we believe, it follows that belief is innately human – a construct of mind; something that we consider, intellectualize, and reach a conscious conclusion about. Faith, on the other hand isn't a concrete concept we can easily explain with words or symbols, thus making faith more the province of the Divine.  We believe in God; we have faith in the certitude of Divine assistance in our mortal existence.

In terms of living faith and the certitude of Divine help, I tell my kids to always look for the hand of God in everything they see and experience. God (or God's agents and associates) is/are always at work in the circumstances of our lives, each moment of every day. 

It's easy for us to see God's hand in nature, since nature is the most direct and "natural" expression of the creative presence. It's more difficult for us to bear witness to the same God-workings in our daily human experience, mostly because this Divine presence often seems to manifest itself in something irritating: you forgot your wallet, had to return home, and discovered you'd left the garage door open, or the like. I try to look for cause-and-effect examples where if a certain thing hadn't happened (what we might automatically qualify as a "bad" thing), another thing couldn't have happened (a good thing).

I feel that if we weren't so fearful of potential negative outcomes, and could just step back and observe the events of life without judging or qualifying them, we would more clearly witness and learn to appreciate the genius of God at work.  

Lesson to be learned: observe more, judge less, feel better.