Painfully Faithful

My faith is the basis for everything in my life. It affects how I view myself, others, my worldview, my purpose and my hope. Without my faith, I would be nothing. I would have no purpose, no future and no hope. Faith is very important to me.

 My life is shaped by the culture I live in. My culture allows room for faith. It is acceptable, although not considered necessary. My life is based on my faith.

 The past fifteen months has been the hardest time of my life. There is no way to have ever guessed the trials, temptation and issues that have consumed me since during this time. My life was in no way perfect before then, but I felt as if I had a handle and general direction. I was dead wrong. My faith has been shaken.

After being raised in a Christian home, attending church my entire life, going to a Christian high school and finally being a part of a Christian university, I thought I had things figured out when it came to my faith. It wasn’t that I was sheltered either, I had definitely seen and learned about the “things of the world” through various incidents. But I was inexperienced when it came to pain.

Faith is a huge part of my life and my life is based on faith, but where does pain fit into it? I couldn’t find a compartment in my faith filled life to put it in, so I locked it away in a box. I carried the key around with me everywhere, but never found the right place to open it, until it burst apart in pieces. Those pieces were disobeying my parents, parties, boys, apathy, friends and fun. These didn’t fit into my faith filled life, but neither did pain.

My life is still based on my faith. It always will be. Faith still drives my purpose and hope in life. But I know my purpose and hope are dead unless I find a compartment for pain in my faith.

What is boxing in the faith in your life?

Mistakes and Tragedies

At this time, my mind is consumed with wondering how people justify their actions and furthermore, why people do what they do. I can easily turn this around to myself though. Why do I make decisions knowing they are wrong? Why do I continually choose to walk in the opposite direction of what I should be doing?

It seems at this particular moment in my life that I and the people surrounding me are transfixed with making poor life decisions. It is an infectious disease that is spreading and cannot be stopped. It is our sin nature that we are letting overcome our mind, soul, spirit and entire being. It is more prevalent and more powerful than I could ever imagine.

Not only do we continually make the same mistakes over, which brings up the fact that it is no longer a mistake the second time but a conscious choice, but we full-well know that right path to pursue and turn our backs to it. Often times, we wait for a tragedy that will shake us to the core and throw us back onto the right path again, but then we seem to ignore these signs that God puts in our lives and try to justify our actions. We face hardships each day, but they only desensitize us more. How will we know when our life-altering tragedy is here?

The truth is that we should not wait for an explosion to shock us, but rather turn back to the Lord because He has always been there and has always been fighting for us. He can free us from our mistakes without a tragedy.

Are you waiting for an impossible tragedy to change you or do you have the strength to start over yourself?

"Well done"

The title of this blog is based off a quote from F Scott Fitzgerald, "I hope you live a life you're proud of. If you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over." I recently came to a point in my life in which I realized I am not happy with who I am. My life does not mesh with my beliefs in Christianity and God. I am not the person I want to be.

This past year I have faced adversities and problems like no other time in my life. It seems that each time I was confronted with a problem, I preoccupied myself by diving further and further away from who I want to be and my faith in the Lord. I was running away from God and towards immediate fulfillment. This is so wrong. Ironically, my motivation to change came from someone who isn't a Christian after my complaining about life. They said, "

You need to wake up. Life will NEVER just fall into place how you want it to and being passive will NEVER take you where you want to go. Being passive about life gets you nowhere and makes you a nobody. If you want to make changes in your life, if you want to actually change your life, then go be proactive and make it happen! nothing worth doing in life will ever be easy. If you want something in life then go get it, come hell or high water. If you fail dust yourself off and go at it again with more intensity then before.

The purpose of this blog is to release my thoughts about life, both humorous and serious (because my friends are tired of hearing it). The goal is to be thought-provoking and continuingly examining my life. I want to the strength to start over. I want to the strength to constantly question my motives and be completely committed to my goals in life. When I die, I want God to look at me and say, "Well done my good and faithful servant."

How do you picture your life?