On Religion and Relationships

Check the news in the sidebar to see a list of the nomeniees for The Sckpanhead Awards 2011! Don't see your favorite? Comment on any blog and tell me so! Remember, I still have the complete list yet to be revealed, but to secure your favorite music on the list I'm going to need your nomination.

My last few blogs have been about music, and as much as I want to do another on that same subject, I feel like it would be only fair to give you lovely readers a break. So in this blog, I will only quote songs instead of talking about them in over-detail. Sound good?

Ok, so I was listening to music in my iTunes library (oh man, how did I miss that one?), and I noticed that a whole album by Thousand Foot Krutch had been put into the genre "religious" by iTunes. That got under my skin just a little bit. So many people have called me religious, indirectly and directly. I thought I was religious for a long time before I really understood what it was I had. I don't have religion at all, and using my own words, I will try to describe to you what I do have.

A super long time ago, when I was around eight, I gave my life to the Lord. This meant, in my little brain, that I would go to church, be a good girl, and pay attention in Sabbath and latter Sunday school. Up until the time I was fourteen, it didn't have any real meaning to it. It was litterally a routine that I followed because I had to, not because it was something I necessarily enjoyed doing. This, you could say, is religion. It's a routine, something people use to feel better about themselves or become closer to God, something people are forced to do, or like me, something you do because it was how you were raised. It's empty. Now some people may get a lot out of religion, I'm not saying it's a bad thing at all. I know some great people who identify with a religion, and they're still on fire for God. It wasn't working for ME specifically.

When I became 14, I started going to a youth group where God was real. He wasn't this big know-it-all in the sky anymore, he was a real person who desired me. He wanted me, he loved me. That was something that blew my mind at the time. I had never experienced God like this. Slowly, over the next four years and counting, God has been making himself real to me. I don't go to church because I have to, but because I want to learn about my savior more. I don't serve to stay busy, I do it because it's just one of the many ways I can show God I love him. At this point, what I have with God is called a relationship.

Now when people ask me if I'm religious, I respond with, "No, I just have a relationship with my savior."

If we look at this in relationship terms, it makes so much more sense. What do you think of when you think of religion? I think of candles for some unknown reason, but really, what do you think of? What about relationship? Totally different thing right?

Relationships require love, time, devotion, understanding, and work. God loves me, obviously. But I have been discovering so many other feelings and emotions God has toward me. He's patient with me when I try to go off and do my own thing. He's understanding when I come crying back to his arms because my way didn't work out. He's forgiving, even when I've gone and done the same thing over and over again. And one of my favorites, he's merciful. I can't tell you how much I enjoy God's grace, his chance to start over again like nothing ever happened. He makes me feel safe, like nothing could ever happen to me, no matter what. It's a hard thing to explain, but it's like total peace, like, "What can man do to me? I've got the maker of the universe right here!" What's amazing is that I didn't earn all this. It was given to me! God doesn't want you to clean yourself up before you come to him. He wants you to come just as you are so HE can clean you up and help you grow. There's nothing like seeing God get rid of an undesirable thing in your life.

He wants me, he desires me. HE....loves....ME! Even before I knew what love was, he picked me out to be his. He slowly wooed me until I said yes, and now I'm falling more and more in love. There's this song I love right now (here I go again), it's by Brandon Heath, and it's called Stolen if you want to look it up. It goes like this: You catch me like a thief in the night, you hold me when I put up a fight, you chase me when I run from Your light. Because You love, you won't give up 'til my heart is stolen. I'm trying to understand that life comes after dying, and to embrace that I'm a slave until I'm captured. But You would never use a lock or a key, 'cause I am free.

It's all God, none of it was me. I could never repay him for what he's done to me, but I wanna start by giving him all of me. I never want to hold anything back from the One who won me over before I knew it myself.