Maybe your twenties are supposed to be about figuring things out. I did figure out something about myself this week. I've been writing on here about something I've been calling my struggle with faith.
I found faith young. I defined my faith with theology in college. Since college, I've had to learn to live it. Life is a redemptive process, and for me the "live it" phase has been hardest.
The thing that I am figuring out is that I am having more of a hard step than a struggle. Being with my family this week was cool because everyone has loosened up without losing their faith.
Most of us =), were able to sit and have a drink together. It was normal and natural. We also just enjoyed sarcastic humor and company. Lately I've been worried that these things are vices, but somewhere deep down I know that they're not.
I got home today and I realized that for the first time in a long time I want to get up and go to church tomorrow and I want to pray. It also got me to thinking about some of my behavior recently.
I've kind of been floating around without much of an anchor. I don't feel bad about going out and drinking with my friends a lot, but I haven't been temperate at all. I think that drinking is okay, but a partying lifestyle isn't. I realized that I do need to be more temperate. I have been thinking that it doesn't really matter if I drink too much with some friends as long as I am responsible and don't drive. I still don't think that accidentally drinking too much is a sin--it's just that if you do it all the time it does leave you open to poor choices. Life isn't about partying and I do believe in sin. Honestly, earlier this summer I was drinking and I was about to do something that no matter how liberal you are you would realize it's a sin. The only reason that I didn't do it was circumstantial. I didn't even think about it being very wrong until now because I didn't actually go through with it.
As I was saying, in my twenties, I am thinking a lot about who I want to be because I could still be a lot of different ways. I hear God talking to me about who I should be and it is the most clarity I've had in a good while.
1 comment:
The more I learn about life, the more support I find for the idea that faith is more about love and less about totalitarian rules about what is and is not a sin.
In the college Bible study I went to, they were very harsh on "relativism" at the same time that they preached it. Sex, dancing, not eating, etc were OK sometimes but not others. Trying to impose universal rules on faith misses the whole point.
The one rule that's actually important is to always aim to express God's love to others, and let your actions follow from that.
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