Faith, You Gotta Have Faith

It is hard sometimes to get things off your chest without it sounding like you want pity, help or sympathy. This is no different. Those that really know me know that I hate asking for help, I hate to borrow money or need assistance to get out of anything, and when it is offered I turn it down unless it is my absolute last option. Please keep that in mind here, I am not asking for your sympathy or prayers, I am a big boy and can figure things out myself, but it always helps to get things out there. I would probably not have this conversation face to face with anybody…

You gotta have faith. Faith.

When I was in middle and high school I was very active with my church and youth group. Yes I caused a lot of trouble, did lots of bad things but I was a religious kid, prayed all the time, had lots of faith, and never questioned it. It helped that I was always around a church family. I have had that on and off the last 9 years. I think that’s a major thing to have to help keep a man straight.

I only pray when things are bad, when someone is in bad health, when I get into some sort of trouble, or for someone I know. Not very often. I have not prayed for myself in a long time; have not asked for help to get me straight with the big guy. The last time I prayed constantly was this past summer when I was in church and playing in the church band, I went to house church every Monday night.  It felt good. Before that it had been 3 years.

I am a religious man at heart, I know God, I know I am saved, I know I am going to Heaven. Everybody that really knows me knows this is true. I also know that I am far from having a barely decent relationship with God. No that’s not ok, I know that also… but I don’t really feel too bad about it. I got a lot weighing me down and not stuff that is easy to let go of. And yes I know if I tried it probably would be, but I’m comfortable in life right now and not in a rushed pace to change any of it.

------ “Kenn you’re going to hell”----- There I said it for you so you don’t have to.

I am moving back home soon, and I know after I get there I will start to get back to my roots, I am excited about it, but not in a big rush to jump right back into it for selfish reasons. I know differently, but I have a lot to fix myself before I get back there.

I fear that I am going to be rushed into something I am not ready for, and I feel bad about that. My mom is pushing to get me right in the thick of things again with a church that I don’t know, church family I don’t know, and she wants me to be right back where I was 10 years ago, and that will not happen overnight. I want to take things slow, be just another face in the crowd and ease my way back into my faith.

I have lots of reasons to have faith, and lots to not; and even though right now I am more in the not section I still hold onto some. I fear that if I am pushed too hard then I might just postpone trying to get back with the big guy upstairs. That’s just human nature.

God gave us all free will to mess up our lives as much as we can, and he lets us. He also knows that when we hit the bottom and go back to him that he will pull us out. I hit that rock bottom and have pulled myself back out. No, not by myself, there is no way, I know God had a hand in getting me to where I am, but I have never asked for it, or thanked him for it. Hell, the closest I came was screaming in a drunken state, “What the hell man? You get some sort of sick pleasure out of this? What am I going to do now? You better fix this shit.” I know that in order for him to really bring you back up the first step is asking for it. Not when you’re drunk of course. Many times in the past he has hit me in the back of the head with a 2X4, and I get my shit together… for a period of time. This time he has not hit me as much as he handed me the 2X4 and said whenever you are ready.

God has done a great deal for me in the last 2 years, and even in the last 2 weeks. And I think this is all part of his plan to bring me back, and I also think he knows that it will take some time. I think this is the start of a lot of changes with my life and that he is going to make everything better. There is a line in a movie, Dogma where the two angels are talking about how down their life has been and one says to the other “When God, when the fuck is it my time?” and I have often said the same. I think maybe my time is now.

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 I can have a somewhat warped opinion of God compared to others. Yes I am fearful of what he can do, and I respect him for who he is and what he does, but when I do talk to him I do not put him up on a pedestal. I talk to God like he is a buddy at the bar, just normal conversation. I have been told by some that this is disrespectful, but the way I see it, he knows my heart, and he knows that it is just the way I am. Who are you to tell me how to pray? I have been told that I am blasphemous. While in a lot of eyes this may be true, I fall back to the same; he knows my heart and knows that I am not. If my mother knew some of the things I say and joke about she would make me eat a bar of soap. I have been called this because I make off colored jokes about religion, God, the Bible and faith, and I have a foul mouth. I know that I am not blasphemous, God knows I never say things like that in a blasphemous manner, and let’s be honest God was human, he has a sense of humor. I mean, he made Bama football right? Who says God can’t find humor in everyday things without it being an attack against him?

I know this blog was all over the place and had no real rhythm, but it was a bunch of things on my chest this last week and I just wanted to get it out. I am not asking for prayers for me to get back to where I should be, not asking for pity or sympathy, I just wanted to say it out loud. I am well aware of where I am and what I am doing, and that’s what matters first. I know there are a lot of people who have been praying for me for a long time. My family, their church family, very close friends, and I appreciate that very much. But without my heart being ready, it is not going to happen. I have to meet him half way.

This was too serious…

The Meat Hammer