This past fall I was fortunate enough to complete a nine-week internship at my church. On one particular day I was sitting the pastor’s office when I came across the TED talk, “A Life of Purpose,” by Rick Warren. It was only about twenty minutes long so I quickly watched it and took some notes.
Throughout the whole video, one particular statement stuck out to me. “I don’t personally have enough faith to be an atheist.” Ever since that day in September, I have thought about what he meant. Today, it has finally hit me. I was stepping out of the shower and trying to decide on a topic for today’s blog when it hit me. Up until last week, the past month had been terrible to say the least. I spent countless hours crying and the overload of stress was taking its toll on me. Throughout it all though, I kept praying and asking God for help. I knew he wouldn’t allow me to feel like this every day if something great wasn’t going to come of it. I’m not sure what that something great is yet, but I know it is coming. How do I know? I know because of the faith I have put in God. I’m not going to say my faith is perfect, in fact it is far from it. I’d be lying to you all if I said that every time I stood in the shower or sat in my car in tears I had perfect faith. Most of the time, my faith was only strong enough to know that God will get me through. So what does this have to do with Rick Warren’s quote? Well I’m honestly not sure where I would be if I didn’t have my faith in God. If I didn’t believe, I may not have made it through some of the really hard times. Instead of leaning on God and allowing him to carry me, I would have had to have faith in myself in order to make it through. My faith isn’t great enough to be an atheist. It just isn’t and for that I am thankful that I have my God.
0 Comments
Prayer, it’s powerful and it’s real. It heals the brokenhearted and it provides hope to the hopeless. Through it we can find a deeper connection with God, our Lord and Savior. We can ask for many things, but we can also thank God.
Each morning as I make my drive to school, I pray. My prayer usually involves four parts. The first part consists of asking God to help those around me. Secondly, I pray for a certain person in my life to wholeheartedly seek out God and be led by his guidance. I follow up by asking for guidance that I may be an example of Christ to others. I end with thanks and praises. A couple of years back, I discovered a verse. That verse is Psalm 116:2, “Because he bends down to listen, I will pray as long as I have breath.” I have fallen deeply in love with the message. I am reminded that I can always pray because he is always listening. There was once a time in which I seriously doubted the power of prayer. I even questioned if God existed. Eventually, I went to the movie God’s Not Dead. Throughout it, I cried and my tears didn’t stop when the movie ended. My tears continued throughout the entire night. I realized that God truly did exist, and he was more alive in me than ever before. I started to become more involved in church. I no longer looked at confirmation as something I had to do. It became something I wanted to do. That spring I was confirmed. A few short months later, I agreed to be confirmation leader. This past fall, I completed a ministry internship at the church. Now, I serve as a small group confirmation guide. I no longer hesitate to pray, but instead view it as a wonderful gift. I refuse to ever stop. Some may disagree with my beliefs and persecute me for them. However, those are the people I pray for the most. The feeling surrounding prayer is unlike any other. Until you’ve prayed, you’ve never really lived. “Love is an act of endless forgiveness. Forgiveness is me giving up my right to hurt you for hurting me. Forgiveness is the final act of love.” –Beyoncé
We all have that one person we find so hard to forgive. Maybe it’s a parent, a family member, friend, coworker, or former lover. We allow anger and bitter thoughts against them to fester inside of us. Eventually, we may reach a point in which we refuse to talk about them or simply talk bad. Throughout this process of anger and hate, we so often forget that instead of hurting the other person, we are simply hurting ourselves. Every time we replay that memory, we hurt ourselves again and again. So what if instead of being angry and bitter, we forgive that person? Yes, it is hard to do. I know because I’ve been in this situation multiple times. I have been hurt by people time and time again, and allowed the anger to build up. I went on hating people for what they did to me, but eventually realized they didn’t feel any guilt for what they did. The only person that was still hurting was me. At this point, forgiveness was my only option. I knew I couldn’t go on without forgiving them because even though they hurt me, I continued to love them. I prayed that God would give me the strength I would need to forgive even the most unforgivable circumstances. At times when I felt like I just couldn’t forgive someone, I would listen to the song, “Forgiveness,” by Matthew West on repeat. In fact, I still do this today. After practicing the act of forgiveness over and over, it eventually becomes easier. However, it is never simple. People will lie, cheat, and steal things from you that you can never regain. Your only job is to forgive them, even if they if it doesn’t seem like they deserve it. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not here to say that I always forgive people right away. I don’t. Sometimes forgiveness takes days, weeks, or even months for me. Although in time, I do forgive. I forgive because there are times when I need forgiveness for what I’ve done. I forgive because I refuse to hurt the people who hurt me. I forgive because no matter what you’ve done, once I start to love you, I never stop. |
AuthorHello everyone, I'm Bri! Here you can find me writing about life in order to help provide you with encouragement and hope. Want to find out more about me? Go visit my "About Me" page! Happy reading! Archives
April 2017
|