Matthew

I don't often regret things.  The choices you make at one time are made because of the information that is currently available.  Sometimes though the right information is there, but you just interpret it wrong.  There can be a huge flashing sign-post but we can be blind to it when we don't want to listen and see what is being shown to us.

My regret is bitter-sweet.  I wish that I had found my connection with God when I was younger, because I feel that I probably should have always been on this path.  I would have made different choices, different decisions with my life. The path I would have been walking would have been a very different one.

At the same time that I feel this regret, I also realise that all of those things that became part of my old life, are now able to help me connect in a far deeper way.  I wonder that maybe I had to bleed a little to get here.  And I actually think that's ok.

I was out with a friend on Friday night, and we got into a discussion about religion.  He used to be a believer but has turned away.  I was challenged about why I believed, it was assumed that I was raised this way, but when I explained it wasn't raising that gave me this faith but pure and simple discovery on my own part he seemed surprised.  I think his main issue was that if God knows everything why does he allow people who won't believe in him and will do bad things to be created?  I tried to explain what I have been learning about being created with free will and that it is our own conscious choice to accept God into our hearts, our choice to have faith and that He wants us to go to Him because we are choosing to.  Except my friend just couldn't believe that we can decide to believe - that it's all already pre-determined and there is nothing to be done to change that.

I wished that I had more information that I could answer his questions with, I'm not full of knowledge to explain the details...I felt sad though that someone could lose their faith in this way and just decide to lock it out of their heart like that.

I am not saying that this is his case, but I think some people believe and then shut themselves off from that because they don't want to have to face their actions.  If they refuse to believe then they can live doing whatever they want and avoid the consequences.

For me, the more I learn, pray and concentrate on improving my connection with God, the more I believe.  The stronger my own personal faith gets each day. 

I'm not asking God  for all the answers, I just pray that He keeps feeding my fire for Him. 

I have been reading the Bible each day, working my way through the New Testament, or I should say that I am still reading Matthew.  I read for a bit and then get off on a tangent in thought reflecting on different passages.

I keep a notebook with me and write down parts that stick out to me....to research a little more on them and figure out what is meant.

Matthew 8: 22 "let the dead bury their own dead" - confuses me a lot.  I can't imagine why Jesus wouldn't want you to honor your own father by burying his body.  Some definitions talk about Jesus referring to the spiritually dead being left to their own devices.  Others say that it is because the body no longer holds the spirit, so we need to pay no heed to the body of a deceased loved one.  Another answer was that it didn't mean this mans father was dead, it was that he was telling Jesus he wouldn't follow him until all his family responsibility was finished. Another answer is that we should be concentrating on the living and not on the dead. 

So many options and all seem reasonable.  I can't believe that Jesus said this to be mean to someone who could have been genuinely grieving a loved one, yet I can't quite decipher what this means.  And according to google, lots of us are trying to figure it out.