To start off this article, a little background on my faith journey might be helpful. I wouldn’t say I grew up in the church as a little tot. My parents both acknowledged and proclaimed that there was a God. It was always, “Oh my Gosh!” in my house, never God. We weren’t the type of family to go to church every Sunday, and that was perfectly okay.
They raised me to be kind to all, and to always put others first. It wasn’t until around middle school age that I started going to local youth group functions with some friends and realized I wanted to become more serious about my personal faith. It didn’t take too long before I knew who I wanted to be in life. I wanted to be a good person, and live for an amazing God. A God who forgives all, a God who loves even the most unlovable, and a God who calls everyone a friend. It is a high and mighty goal that I strive to complete everyday.
It is a difficult task to follow God’s heart at times. Some days I really am not the most forgiving person. I can be terribly stubborn, and hold grudges that should have been long forgotten. With the busy life I live, I often forget I need to have a day of rest. “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns” (Exodus 20:8-10) This particularly verse is a weekly reminder to me, and should be to you as well. If God wanted us to be going non-stop all the time, he would have made it so. I take my Sunday’s to read and write, and really spend some quality time with the big man above. I journal my thoughts an prayers; as if I’m going to be mailing them off to God to read in his spare time. A very rewarding aspect of journaling my prayers is to flip back a decent amount of pages and see how much distance I have traveled. Sometimes even after reading just a line or two, I can see what God has changed in my life in that letter, and it is an amazing feeling to physically see the changes he is making.
Another aspect of my faith journey that is an active work I progress is making the friends I have as close as possible. Godly friends are a key part in keeping my faith whole. They ask the difficult questions, or say the things I maybe don’t want to hear at that time. By doing this, they encourage me to go above and beyond. I look into scripture more in-depth because I want to tell them what I learned that day. Maintaining Godly relationships keeps me accountable. If I know my friends wouldn’t approve of me making a decision then I am less likely to do it. Obviously I could talk to God about it later after the decision is made as a reflection, but you need friends who are not afraid to step into a situation is they know the real you. Not the surface you, but the raw and vulnerable parts of you. To have these friendships are something I almost take for granted at times. “Friends love through all kinds of weather, and families stick together in all kinds of trouble.” (Proverbs 17:17)
I would like to think that my life is completely put together. But it is most definitely not. I struggle on a daily basis with the smallest things sometimes. I have to remind myself that God has got this. He wouldn’t give me anything I couldn’t handle without him. It’s a hard idea to grasp sometimes, especially when I am extremely stressed. I have to remind that this life is temporary. An amazing side to life waits on the other side of the door.
One of my favorite verses is as follows: “Whenever you feel unloved, unimportant, or insecure, remember to whom you belong” (Ephesians 2:19-22). This is a daily reminder to myself that even the things I am most self-conscious about; God loves dearly. And if God sees nothing wrong with them, then neither should I.
