Religion

Why do I go to church?
I want to sleep in on the weekend, wake up watching cartoons, stay out late with my friends.
I want to drink like my family, I want to smoke weed like my cousins, I want to cuss like my friends.
Why have I allowed religion to bring me down to such a lowly standard of "cool"?
I am not cool.
I am just a church kid.

It comes up every day.

It has never been just religion. It just so happen to be the way I live my lifestyle corresponds so perfectly with God.
No. I don't smoke or drink (aside from a little sip with family, but nothing to excess). I condone anything that does not allow me complete control over my body.
Unfortunately, this rule is always broken by temptation.
Temptation.
One more step and you sin.
I always find myself in this sick cycle of falling deep into sin and convincing myself God has forgiven me.
I hate every part of that process.
I always tell others that words lose their meaning over time, and ironically my "sorry" is nothing more than a complete lie.
And so because of this utter failure I find myself on the verge of self-destruction, and the opiate of the masses becomes detrimental to me.

This is not the case.

It is not that becoming Christian is a one-time press-a-button step in life. It is a continual process of sanctification, a process of becoming clean again.

If there's one phrase I could describe God with, it would be: He is a God of many chances and choices. As much as I would love to be a worshipping robot for the kingdom, everything is ultimately my choice. I choose to go to church, I choose to participate in praise team, i choose everything.

I guess I should figure out why I go, since it's my choice. The main reason is that I pretty much don't have anything to live for. Ok, no that's too emo. The real reason is that I don't know what else I would do. Church has become such a continuous pattern that taking it out would be crazy.

I can't imagine myself today as someone who didn't go to church. Actually, I'm going to stop saying "go to church" and say know God. Because God is the only reason why religion exists, and is the only reason why I go.

Can you say that church has made me a sheltered child? Yes, I admit it will. I don't know how to "experience" the world, however, I have no plans to.

God is said to be never-changing, merciful, fair, gracious, all these good things. I find that ridiculously hard to believe. How could something that perfect exist? From a psychological standpoint, it's easy to figure out why someone would believe in God, it fills up something inside the soul that we don't know how else to fill. So in this case, God does not exist, only the idea of God does.

In a way I surrender to this fact. In a inconsistent world, God is the only consistent part of me.

And so I commit myself to a life of following God and His ways and the promise of life given to us through the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. But no one told me it would be difficult, mind-shattering, stressful. My life is a tug-of-war between God and the world, and I'm getting torn up.

I see my friends and even my family members going to parties on a regular basis, drinking underage, inhaling smoke from their hookahs, and all these things that would be "sinful" in God's eyes. But why are they so happy? Why are they happy and I'm stressed out thinking over this conflict?

Life's not fair, and since life is God's work, is God not fair? Doesn't that go against everything He stands for?

One of the most important things I learned to consider is how the situation looks from God's eyes. And how can I, a simple-minded human, look through the eyes of someone so glorious as God? And so I cannot. I can only trust. I can only trust that God's plan is right and is for my own good.

So I take these struggles as a path to my victory, towards my inevitable salvation that is eternal life in heaven.

All of these things are illogical, and I don't expect anyone to understand my thoughts. But God is beyond logic, beyond anything a human mind can compute.
I stay satisfied despite the fact I can never understand who God truly is. But the things He's done and the miracles He's allowed in the world and even my life are enough to reason the existence of God.

There is so much on my mind about God I could type, but I'm too tired.

But I suppose I could end with this statement:
F you world, you're not taking this one.