Not according to your family, not according to your prestige. Not according to your popularity, not according to your fortunes good or bad, be it unto you. But, according to your faith be it unto you. Faith is not pictured in scripture as mist, or a fog, or as a wisp of a cloud here today and gone tomorrow. Faith is pictured as a reality.
Scripture speaks of faith like the reinforced concrete that holds up a building.
Faith is the reinforcing steel of our Christian lives. Some rationalists would say that faith is not real. That it is a mental trick or a psychological game we play with ourselves. That faith is a bluff, like whistling in the dark as you pass a graveyard. Some say the only things that are real are the things science can measure, or that you can see, touch and handle.