I Wish You Would Leave Religion Out of It.

“You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. Such confidence we have through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God.”

-2 Corinthians 3:4-5

 

I was reading a post on The Mighty’s website. It was a lovely post about a girl writing a letter to her future husband, whomever he may be. She was saying that she knows he probably wouldn’t think about marrying “a sick girl”. She went on to say that marriage is hard, but she would do her very best to be a good wife and mother. She continued and said that God would be with them every step of the way. Anyway, I was reading the comments afterwards, and this person told her that religion should be left out of the equation. She loved the post, but it was important to acknowledge that people could live a good life/be a good person without a god or religion.

You can. You can certainly be a wonderful person and lead a good life without a god or religion. I know several people like that.

However, that’s not the whole picture. What is the point of living a good life if it’s all in vain? We live in a fallen world. Without God, goodness will not prevail. The broken values of this world always manage to find a way in and destroy everything that is good.

I often wonder how many people think that about my blogs, or my stories. I wonder how many people read my posts and think, gosh, I wish she’d leave religion and God out of it. It’s great that she finds comfort in religion, I don’t blame her, but it would be so much more inspiring if she just didn’t mention it. Or, I wonder how many people don’t read my posts at all because they know I’ll be talking about my faith. I’m sure there is a fair number of people who think that.

Here’s the thing, it would not be more inspiring. It would not be a testimony to how God has worked in my life. I would have more of a self-praising, prideful, superior attitude. That is not from God. Nobody likes someone who can’t stop talking about themselves.

I do not use God as a coping mechanism for the hard times in my life. God is an integral part of my life. I have a personal relationship with Him. God gives me life. He gives me purpose.

So, no, I won’t leave religion out of it. When I tell people that I was angry at God for my diagnosis, I mean it. I was angry. You don’t think that after all I went through, I had my misgivings about this religion thing? How could something so awful happen to me after everything I tried to do right? I tried to play by the rules, and messed up sometimes, but I always tried to do the right thing. Yet, here I was, sick again.

Many people have told me, “You’re so strong. I don’t know how you do it.” I do. I am strong. I fight every day for my health. But It is God who gives me that strength. There is no way I’d be able to handle this all on my own. So, sure, I do turn to God for comfort, but I do not use Him as a convenience when I need help. That is a marking of a true believer in Christ.

So, here’s a question to the girl who thinks religion should be left out of the equation. How do you expect me to, when I believe so fully in the transformative power of Jesus, to just leave Him out of my musings? It’s impossible. He is the main attraction behind my life. My goal is to make that known. The people who care about me want to know what’s going on in my life, whether they are believers or not. People want to know how I handle these things. It may not always be that I handle it well, but God certainly has performed miracles in my life, and I intend to make them known. I am not perfect, but God is. Even if one person, through my writing,  realizes that they need God, then that is more than enough reward for me.

 

 

 

“Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.”

-Psalm 63:3

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”

-Ephesians 3:20-21

“You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.”

-1 John 4:4-6