find God

Over the course of the summer, I was stationed with three wonderful, intelligent, and thoughtful women, who gave me a lot of new ideas on this. The one that is most prominent is that religion should be more like a quest than a destination. It shouldn’t be something you get, or something you have. If you think you have all the answers, if you think “it really is that simple,” you’re wrong. Religion, and spirituality in turn, should be a lifelong quest to know and understand God better, through whatever means and whatever vehicle possible. That might mean attending different types of worship services, or reading religious texts of more than one denomination. Part of the reason I am reluctant to classify myself as any one thing is because I feel that I am on that quest…that I am in the middle of things right now, and I can’t, with any sort of solid conviction, designate myself as belonging to one group or the other. It would be dishonest to myself and to the higher powers that be. So now that I can better define where I am, I need to work on doing something about it and moving along in my quest…

Someone once said “If you think you understand, it isn’t god.” I thought I had a pretty good grasp on what religion and faith and everything was growing up, but I always had doubts. Now I’ve found that on my own I am much more willing (and able?) to question and search for answers. The sects of Christianity that I am confronted with seem…odd, because everyone believes something slightly different, but they all claim it’s the same and that it is the only way to heaven. Not sure if I believe that. I guess it is just hard to reconcile what I have seen, heard and learned in life with what the Bible and the Christians I talk to tell me, but I haven’t found anything else that satisfies my questions and need for “something else” either.