Losing My Religion

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LOSING MY RELIGION

John 14:6: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me."

Listening to an old song from REM of the same title, it had me reflecting about my faith and life with Jesus.
Recent times have been some of the toughest and most confusing times of my life – my foundation, things I thought I knew, relationships and faith were shaken and challenged time after time. My thoughts of situation (real or perceived), circumstances and other things had me struggling to grasp onto anything to keep myself from sinking. I struggled to find the voice to worship, praise or prayer. I was even struggling to find my own identity, what I like and dislike; trying to make sense of it all. Nothing really made sense.

The Bible verses I had learnt, thought I understood didn't feel the same; it is funny how things seems to be different when you are looking in from the outside in comparison to being in the middle. Things were falling apart and away, others were being moved away – and all of it, seemingly out of my hands. At the same time, other things started to bubble to the surface. Desperate to look for answer, trying and looking everywhere - nothing really fill the one piece. What is the purpose of this life?
 
The question at the core was my faith: a religion or a life?

Through it all one thing I sure of, that without Jesus I had nowhere to go. He was my only anchor in the midst of the life’s storm. The only thing that kept me from drifting into some void. I knew I wasn’t losing my faith in Jesus Christ, but things were coming apart, exposing things which was long been buried in what life was throwing at me.

Old songs started to take on new meaning and challenging the comfortable existence – justice, stepping out, taking action, looking for opportunities to bless and give, making time to meet, listen and talk with people, experiencing things anew again, taking a moment to breath, walk and find joy is the simpler things of life. 

Realisation that what was anchoring me wasn't the religion or the belief or even the faith as such.. It was the relationship with Jesus. The understanding of what was wrong helped me to realise what wrong, but it is the relationship with Jesus that anchored me through the good and bad times. Shredding my religion for the relationship that has saved me more times than can be counted. On the journey of discovering, that I didn't want to sit and consume things, rather I wanted to take the life that He has given me and together with my Saviour, create a life that would bless and touched the lives of people around. So they too would lose their religion and come to know of this life with Him.

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