You need God in your life. Before you write me off quickly due to your potential lack of faith or spirituality, hear me out. I promise, this will be worth the read.
In times like these with terrorism striking fear into the hearts of many, Donald Trump running for President, and societal discrimination seeming to become more of a plague on the human conscience, we need God. Now, when I say God I don't mean an almighty figure looming over the universe poking and prodding it while laughing about how humans still repeat the same bigotry, violence, and lack of common sense in most things. It's all a matter of perspective. Growing up, I was born into the church, served as an acolyte, read Scripture at the lectern almost every Sunday and became quite attached to my faith.
Life has given me great reasons to believe and equally disbelieve in a higher power of some kind. I've endured the tragedies of loved ones' deaths, achieved extraordinary things, and found confidence in myself. Through all of it, there was this feeling of something having power of me, over my life, over my future. It was only until recently that I recognized it to be the control of God. I am not a puppet on God's strings, but a voice of reason and faith. For those of a different faith or those who hold no religious ideology, I wholly respect you and honor your decision to pray or not to do so. That's where religion gets a bad reputation, though. When religion is bastardized because people do horrific things in the name of God, that is when the vision of God becomes distorted.
However, I believe that God is not a singular entity but the faith of all received and reciprocated throughout the universe. I suppose, and this may sound strange, that I see faith and God akin to The Force in "Star Wars." There is this breath of warmth that flows through us all, which may sound as though I'm about to explain spirituality to you, but that's not the case. I've learned to see God in people, as though the concept of God is this higher power that brings light to dark times and dark situations.
If you choose to see God in a light that truly illuminates your life, then all will happen as it should. Now, horrific things still happen in this world and I don't think it's proper to say that "It's all in God's plan," because that makes it seem like God is just out to damn all of us to lives of sorrow and horror. God doesn't want people to be beheaded, he doesn't want cancer to run through our bodies, and and he doesn't want us to spew hate in the name of the Bible. The Bible was created at a time when many things were far, far different than they are today. Also, the Bible was sort of like playing the game telephone in that people would pass along stories about Jesus (who, despite skeptics, did exist) and the stories became fantasized to include beasts and many instances of inexplicable miracles. Whether these things all happened is up to speculation and firm belief in the unknown, but one thing remains above all else: people believed in God for a reason.
I recently had someone near and dear to me say that God's plan is for us to be happy. It was a very simplistic statement, but one that I realized quickly was true. God plans for us to be happy and, if God works through our bodies and actions as a conduit, then all things could be great in the name of God. Instead, humans choose to ignore the fact that someone who believes in God often wants the best for others and themselves. Prayer alone is a completely selfless act that, by nature of its own lack of action, does not entirely cure cancer or stop war, but rather it instills belief that things can get better. We need God in the sense that we need a thriving belief that things can get better, that we will be rewarded in some capacity for the good we do for others, and that we need to understand that some things can't be explained with simple logic. We need to let go and let God.
If you're looking for some songs about faith that may help you along your way, whether you follow a denomination of faith or not, I suggest a listen to the following.
