Today for instance, it was a song. The worship leader spoke and he spoke specifically about the song we sang during the group singing. There were these words, I don't know them exactly, but basically they went something like this, "All that I am I give to you." For a huge part of my christian life I tried and tried to find "the will of God", I tried to be more pleasing to God, and I tried to always do the right thing. Where I learned the definition of the "right thing" was from a church. Now this can be a little misleading at times depending on the church you go to and what they teach or preach. Mix that with a person like me who listened from the perspective that no matter what I did, I pretty much wasn't "worthy" or good enough. I always looked around me and wondered why God's blessings seemed to fall on others. There was always this particular model of christian that I believed one should be. And I was not that model.
I had way too many questions that I felt couldn't be answered. Later on in life, I learned from a very wise young pastor, to live in the mystery that we don't have all the answers. It sounds simple, but it had a huge impact on my faith.
About ten years ago my life, as I knew it, fell apart. I prayed, believed and pursued the idea that God would do a "quick" healing. Little did I know at the beginning of my "healing" how very long it would take, how the "healing" process really never ends. I let go of all the dogma I had learned and beleived and had to take a good, strong, long look at who I was. I didn't believe a lot of what I was taught as a young christian any more.
The one thing I did and still do believe deep down; as much as I can beleive anything unseen, is that there was a man/God named Jesus who lived a long time ago, who was perfect, who went through all the things I've gone through and will go through, who died at the hands of crazy, self righteous people from his own faith, and who, amazingly came back from death...physically. That is one thing I have chosen to believe and not let go of.
All of the other stuff....I'm still questioning.
To make a very long story short, I had to accept myself for who I was, just as I was, and even more so, had to love myself. When Jesus said "all the commandments can be summed up in these: love God first with all your being and then love others as yourself" he meant it. No wonder the religious people hated him. They would not look at themselves. And the part about loving others as you love yourself...that's radical. It implys you must love yourself. Most churches seem to have a difficult time talking about this one. The negative crap is so much easier and brings in way more money.
Getting back to today....I realized that I can give God all of me, imperfections and all and God will still love me, care for me and help me out. I read on facebook a post about someone going to church and hearing a message of how bad America is and "how can God bless us?" It angered me. Really? I can't serve a God who is angry with me all the time because I try my best and still miss the mark. I can't serve a God who constantly reinforces ideas about humans being so horrible. Humans, who, according to every bible I've read, were made in God's image. I don't think God hates us. Is there evil? Yes, I believe so. But I don't think it comes easily. I think most people want good, want God and if they could be convinced, would believe in a loving God.
Enough said....have a happy, holy day.....see you next time.
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