Many of you know that I'm a Christian person: I believe in God, I believe in Jesus, and I believe in the Holy Spirit. However, I have never really identified myself with a particular religion. My parents say they are Pentecostal and I lean towards that, but I have a problem with identifying myself to one religion. Why? Because I don't believe that ONE religion has the answers. And so, I rely on my faith and my beliefs and in God to direct me to the "right" answers. When I moved back to Calgary after Victoria, I spent a lot of time with my family and close friend Elda, and I got a chance to become acquainted with Christianity. The marvelous thing about my family and Elda is that they each hold a slightly different view on religion. They have many things in common, such a Jesus being the son of God, God the creator of this world, and the Bible as the book of answers. Of course, between all of us, we hold a different view on how this world was created. Please note, I'm not a creationist and I don't believe this world was created in 2011 years ago. Nope.
Being surrounded by them questioned my own views because I wanted to make sure that what I was believing was, in my view, correct. And to me, what I view is correct! I don't expect somebody else to come along and believe exactly in what I believe nor do I expect to believe in what they believe. I do, however, believe that we believe in many different things which seems correct to us. And I think that's the beauty of Christianity - we are all right and we are all wrong. But what matters is how we live our lives and how we respond to God when that time comes.
I can sit here today and say that 90% of the time I lead my life the way God wants me to. The other 10% I'm battling with (ex, expected to go to church every Sunday.) But my faith allows to me know that if I don't go to church every Sunday, I'm not going to be condemned; rather, I acknowledge God as much as I can every day and thank Him for my blessings. I don't need church to remind me of why I'm here, why God is here, and how I should live my life.
With all of that being said, I respect everyone's beliefs and everyone's faith. I know that conflict will always exist because of religion, but I find it ironic that God tells us to love one another, and yet we fight and kill over God. I will never fight and never kill because of God; instead I will love you and I will respect you because of God, and even if you don't believe in Him, He believes in you and loves you more because of it.
L.S.
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