I feel like it's really important for people to be honest about their struggles with their faith.
So many people are out there trying to act a certain type of way but that, I feel, pushes people further away from God because, sometimes, people just like me look at people who they feel are so much further in their walk and feel so much like they're failing miserably.
So many times I've looked at someone else and wished that my faith was as strong as theirs. Even when my faith is at its strongest, I've often told myself that it's just not strong enough.
How easy it is to be pulled off of my rock from somebody with a negative mindset. How easily I have been misled. How easily I listen to someone's anger to the point they spew venom and hatred toward those they are angry with instead of stopping to pray for them and I say nothing because I just don't know what to say or how to even speak. I don't know where you are on your path, but what I can say is I've probably been in your shoes.
I've practiced witchcraft, I've looked into lots of many different things, and I am in no way even close to being any kind of saint.
In fact, I often think I'm the farthest from it. However, even when I have doubts, I always end up back to this moment where I know God exists. And even though in this moment I know God exists, I also am well aware of how easily my doubts have slammed me right back down to doubting His existence as well as everything I've ever seen, or come out of.
I feel like it's more important for people to share their struggles within their faith than it is to burden people with everything they're doing "wrong".
I don't agree with scaring people into faith. I don't agree with coming to people and telling them everything they're doing wrong and expecting them to want to come running to a Father who supposedly loves them.
Many of us were not raised by people who we felt loved us unconditionally. Therefore, it's incredibly challenging to believe that some entity that we cannot see actually does love us in such a way where humans did not. It makes it almost impossible for us to want to take a step in that direction.
I was fortunate enough that somebody came to me in a loving manner and gave me a tape many years ago that I cast off to the side for a long time before I finally listened to it and was saved. (It was Joyce Meyer's testimony.)
Since that day, I've been up and down with my faith and most of it was because of HUMANITY.
Because of how so many people, including those within the church, treated me when I had another child out of wedlock, and kept him instead of giving him away, casting judgment on me when it was not their right to do so... their actions & toxic words pushed me away from God instead of showing me His Love, Mercy, Grace and support. I doubted myself and my relationship with God because of them.
Never once did they ask ME what God was telling me, but instead, they told me how I disobeyed God. That was MY church, MY leaders that I looked up to. I stopped going to church then and there.
I feel so strongly within me that we need to stop casting judgment onto each other and let God deal with us individually.
God wants us to come to Him and he will make the changes in our hearts. I see so many humans that are in positions of power misleading their congregation, maybe unintentionally.
I can't be a part of that. Not when I know that my God wants me to move toward Him and not away from Him.
I'm angry with humans that are misleading people! I am angry that they cannot see how much they are damaging those they are supposed to love!
Pharisees! How dare you point your fingers in condemnation at people who have not yet even met Our Father?
"You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”
(Matthew 12: 34-37)
Jesus is coming back soon and if you're too preoccupied with looking down your nose at people who sin differently than you, I feel sadness in my heart for you because I would not want Him to say to me, "Depart from me, I do not know you."
We ALL fall short. That is and has ALWAYS been the TRUTH. This is why we needed Jesus to save us from OURSELVES, not each other.
When your last day on earth is done, you go to the Father and be judged alone.
You will not be judged based on whether you were better or worse than anyone else, but by your own actions. Nobody gets into Heaven for being "a good person", because no matter how good we think we have been, we all have done things that harmed someone else.
I struggle with my faith every single day.
My faith does not come naturally to me.
I don't read the Bible as other's do but I also do not act in the same manner as I have seen others who read it religiously do.
I do, however, talk to God.
I hide nothing from Him, not that I could.
I share every single awful detail that I am ashamed of with Him and I also am very open & honest about the things that I don't understand that anger me about everything I have read.
Sometimes, I feel like I am having a literal tantrum with God because I am so incredibly angry with the things I don't understand and I feel angry at God in those moments. I'm being 100% honest here.
But I am still talking to Him and I am not lying or withholding what I feel or think. He knows already, so what is the point in denying?
You may have your opinions about my relationship with God, but, in all reality, you need to worry about your own.
He won't talk to you about what I did wrong or right when you meet Him on judgement day.
I promise you, when I talk about my faith, I am always learning. I don't have it all figured out, but I sure do want you to know that there is someone out there that loves you in all your mess just like I am loved in all of mine.
I'm not out here trying to condemn anyone. I don't believe that is what God wants us to do.
When you REALLY love someone who REALLY loves YOU, you WANT to please them. You WANT the best FOR them. You WANT to be the best version of yourself for them. You learn what they like, dislike and you work on those things TOGETHER.
Why is that so hard for humanity to see that is also how it is with God?
Introduce people to our loving Father who created us in His image and let HIM change them in HIS timing.
I promise you, He knows what He's doing.
