Owning Our Faith

I don't always put my heart into everything that I do in life, but my faith is one thing I am passionate about.  It makes me want to learn, pushes me to grow as a person, and inspires me to care more about others.  The challenge to know God in a more personal way than I ever thought  possible is a task that I gladly welcome.  I have the joy of uncovering His mysteries every day and taking pleasure in what I find.  Now that I have experienced the joy that is mine through Christ, I would never want to distance myself from my faith.

I haven't always felt this way, though.  I used to be complacent and happy to move through life only pretending that my faith was important.  I knew all the Sunday School answers and Bible stories that I had been taught from a very young age.  Singing the books of the Bible was only slightly harder than singing my ABC's.  Yet, all that I knew meant very little to me.  My relationship with God was only a Sunday morning routine.  My pastor owned his faith.  My parents owned their faith.  I simply tried to live off of their faith as if that would fulfill my soul's desire to be close to God.  I eventually realized that their faith wasn't able to provide me with a personal relationship with my heavenly Father.  I said the sinner's prayer when I was a child, and what Jesus did for me that night was very personal, but I hadn't quite grasped what it meant for Him to be a personal, relational God.

It took me about thirteen years to realize what it meant to have a relationship with God and to experience it for myself.  If you haven't gotten to that point in your understanding of God, you might want to take a serious look at your faith.  Before I owned my faith, I only went to God for help.  I rarely talked to others about Him.  I obeyed the Ten Commandments simply because it was the right thing to do.  Hearing from God was completely foreign to me.  This all changed when I began to want God.  I stopped asking what He could give me and started asking for more of Him.  Once I did that, I started seeing God show up in my life.

If you're wondering where God is in your life, try asking yourself how much you are owning your faith.  Is God more than a character in your mind?  Are you seeking Him?  God is constant.  He never changes which means that He never moves away from us.  We, on the other hand, can move closer to or farther away from Him.  So, don't be complacent.  God is the one who created you and longs for you to know Him more. When you begin to desire His presence in return and to own your faith, you begin to experience God.

"Come near to God and he will come near to you."
James 4:8

Little Bits of Sunshine

The past few weeks of school have been pretty crazy, and I haven't had the time that I would like to devote to a proper blog post.  I told myself I would sit down to write when I had some time, but I honestly haven't had anything weighing on my heart that I wanted to share.  For that reason, I thought I would write about something a bit different today.  Where I live, the weather has been quite dreary for the past few days.  I'm not a fan of this type of weather.  However, there are always little bits of sunshine that can make these days better.  Here are some of the things that have been brightening my days recently:

- Sunsets
- Bright sunlight peeking through the clouds
- Leaves falling from the trees
- Time with friends
- Conversations with God
- Attending Bible study
- Making music

The things on this list are reminders of God's love for me and His constant presence in my life. As I experience these throughout my day, I realize once again that God knows everything about me.  He knows when I need lifted up and encourages me to put a smile on my face even when skies are gray.