O' TO HAVE THE FAITH OF A CHILD

O' to have the faith of a child. Imagine how your life would be.

As a child I had no question if God exists or not. There was never any battling of logic or science in my mind. I knew that He exists and if you asked me, I would tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt that He indeed does. I cried when I learned that Jesus was murdered for the sole objective that my soul might be saved through him by Gods Grace. I would tell stories of Heaven in excitement. I would think of all the many ways that I loved Him and wondered how He could love me so much when I had never met Him. I followed with-out any doubting.

I grew older in this world however. My eyes, mind, soul and heart were polluted and hardened by the things of the devil. Death started becoming a very scary and real thing. Murder, sexual immorality, hate and greed are some things my mind was subjected to through society. Logic and science set out to explain the unexplainable to me. Embarrassment started setting in over my belief. Satan had gotten in and I started trying to make God a mathematical formula, which is simply impossible. My heart lost it's eyes for His Glory and I started to question everything. My thought was of what I could do on my own, not what I could only do through Him (Which is everything good).

This was my deluding. However, by His Glory and Grace, He revealed Himself once again to me and condemned my foolishness. This has only happened to me because of His Grace. Nothing that I have done brought me back to Him.

This I have come to realize. There is simply no way to make God logical or mathematical. That is like me expecting my morning pancakes to understand me. The most foolish thing is that I had always believed in creation, never once did I play with the thought of evolution and theories of such, yet I lost faith that something way outside of our understanding and logic could have created this amazing universe that we live in. Only through our faith that is given to us by Gods Grace can we be saved and given mercy. The devil will do his best to sway our minds and thoughts from God and towards the fleeting and sinful joy of our world. I am challenging myself to always search for joy through God, and always remember the faith I had as a child before becoming a more deluded and foolish person.

"Truly I say unto you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter at all" Luke 18:17

"For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast." Ephesians 2:8-9

MY INTERNAL ISSUE WITH COMMUNITY

I was moved around a lot as a kid (no excuse) so one of my greatest struggles is that of community. I have learned growing up to rely very heavily on myself for many things. The biggest being to rely solely on myself through rough spots and bouts with my faith. I keep many things internal though as not to get too close to people that will not be in my life a few years down the road. I also believe that my issues belong to me and hold no value to other people. This issue has made me become very selfish in the way I give and receive. One prime example of my selfishness is my devotion time with God. Whenever I think of my time spent with God I think of it as what I'm getting out of it, not what I am or should be giving to God through it. I think that community is one issue that the world as a whole fights with. And unfortunately many people loose everyday to it. So what do I need to learn about community?

Community: a group of interdependent organisms inhabiting the same region and interacting with each other.

Now one thing that's sad about that definition is that it is the definition for community as pertains to ecology, yet the only one I could find that said anything about interaction. Every definition that I found (and I googled it) that pertained to human beings just defined as having the same local or belief system.

Maybe this is why I/we have such an issue with community in our world.

Having the same belief system is important for community, don't get me wrong, but what about interaction? Interaction is probably my biggest struggle with community. I'm dang good at hanging out with people that have the same beliefs as I do. That's the easy part. It's the interaction part that hinders my growth. With-out that interaction I turn to myself for solace. Where are we when people need us for solace? I know where I am.... To busy. Sick right? But that's the struggle I'm trying to overcome. To loose selfishness and to overcome my internal issues with community.