My Faith

Dear readers, what you read here will show you who I am. It is not the public me, but rather the private intensified. Here as you know I am neurotic, obsessive, long winded, and a bunch more things that I try not to show in public. Much of the humor is crude and the jokes lame and the topics self centered. But I wanted to go with this post in a direction I avoid. Normally I try reasonably hard to stay away from talking about religion. Having worked with writing a bunch I know that there are a few topics that can break a writer, and destroy popularity. One of those is religion. But I want you to know who I am. To shake off the lies for at least one post and show you the most private side of my face, and part of my heart as well.

It is no surprise that my faith is a large part of my life, after all I have worked in a church at a paid position for over five years, and worked at a church in general for over eight. I eat regularly with my senior pastor, I talk with my old youth pastor as a friend and mentor, I am facebook friends with the entire family that served our church in the worship ministry. These things are close to my heart. I have been trying to live as I believe, but such things are hard. Not until the brink of disaster, when everything falls away and we are left alone does God come to save the day, prove to us that he is greater than any problem we have. We sometimes have to give up, realize there is nothing left for us to do, nothing else we can do, and leave it to Him.

When it comes to reading every year I make it a point to get through psalms and proverbs. I enjoy them. Most recently I was in 1st Kings, specifically chapter 18. I was here trying to learn that God can overcome anything, even those things which we see as obstacles such as how an altar would light itself, and even more so if it is soaked in water.

I have kept a prayer log for some time now, it gets modified and changed, names get added and removed. But in general it is a way for me to remember to pray for my friends and their struggles. And so to not pick on any one in particular, or to make the struggles of others public, I will show you an excerpt, namely the first and last things I pray for.

I begin with something like, "Lord help me to not make a fool out of myself today." and end with "Lord I am yours, teach me to yearn for you, to seek you, and to trust you. Help me to remember that you are my God. Teach me to love like you love. Mold me into a blessing. Use me for your glory. Make me holy Lord. Lord teach me to be a blessing to my friends and family and all who meet me, let them see you in me." Not every prayer of mine goes this way, but this is how my log is written. When it is bearable, I take nights to go on walks. My neighborhood has a good 3 mile loop that I am fond of. While on the walk I use a good part of the time to pray. I go through my thoughts, feelings, actions, wants, needs, friends, family, hobbies, jokes, whatever comes to mind or is weighing on me that day. Now it may seem crazy, some guy walking down the street, seemingly talking to himself out loud, but its a good solid hour I can put aside.

Faith is one of the hardest things I have ever tried, and I get lazy, forget, and neglect it often. But I do believe that it works. I have seen the power of prayer, and even though often I do not get what I want, I get what I need. And although solutions are not often what is expected, they work better than my efforts ever could.

It is a hard thing for me to talk about, even harder in public, and I often feel awkward when discussing it, but that's a peek into me, and it's just about as honest as I could be. This is where I get my strength and my ability to press on.

If in my life I do anything that is considered great, let it be known that the glory belongs to God; and when in my life I fail in any way, let that then be attributed to me.