When you write so often as I do, mixing the fictional with shreds of truth, you tend to question what is really important. What is valuable? For me that answer is simple: my mental health is most valuable to me, as it affects not only how I perceive the world, but also how others perceive me.
Because of this I have had the most blessed opportunity to understand what a free faith can really mean. As I said, I add some fictional elements to my writing, but behind it I guess there is a real faith. Despite being gifted with certain insight in this life, it does not make me special. Likewise, it does not make me unspectacular either.
I have lived to witness the Heavenly Father work in my life through reason and logic. I have (as some of my past works attest to) experienced my own closeness to the divine, and, unfortunately, a life with mental illness also. That mental illness has driven my interest in biblical type things, but I emphasis I am not religious, I am not a believer (in the religious sense).
I know “God” exists, I don’t need a religion to tell me this. I don’t mean “I have the answers”, I don’t. I am aware of the existence of a greater force at play in our lives. The idea of God is nothing to be feared. However, God Itself certainly is something to be fearful of. Yes, rejoice in your faith, but temper it with wisdom and the understanding you are part of something much larger than yourself. It is called ‘life’.
The nations were angry, and your wrath has come. The time has come for judging the dead, and for rewarding your servants the prophets and your people who revere your name, both great and small– and for destroying those who destroy the earth.
Revelation 11:18
They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.
Revelation 12:11
Strangely, or perhaps fittingly, faith seems to grow best when the right balance of hardship and opportunity is met. The harvest of the Heavenly Father and the Kingdom of Heaven is the finest ‘fruits’ that Earth has to offer. This of course includes gifted individuals such as musicians, but also (most importantly) includes the Saints.
The Saints always living among you may seem to inherently understand certain aspects of faith and the Kingdom of Heaven, but really this wisdom has come about due to personal hardships. However, we can confidently assess that strict adherence to a religious order can often hamper faith rather than strengthen it.
If you must, treat religion as a scaffolding to support your faith while you build it up, ready to be removed once that faith reaches a certain maturity.
When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.
1 Corinthians 13:11
When we free ourselves of the human made structures of religion, we can then begin to allow the Heavenly Father to adjust our sight so to speak. This should not be a process of believing in fairytales, magic and other delusional thinking. It should be an exploration of your own existence.
But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
Matthew 6:33
When you find the Kingdom of Heaven (if you do in these days of the LORD) you will experience a truth that is hard to measure. Hard to quantify. Impossible to contain. As we speak (or in my case as I write) we are mindful of the Heavenly Father and understanding that we do not have a complete understanding of His purposes.
He makes winds his messengers, flames of fire his servants.
Psalm 104:4
As I have mentioned in previous posts, there is a desire from the Heavenly Father to rebrand the Kingdom a little and distance itself from religion in general. The tricky part is maintaining the teachings and the good work of the Saints while providing truth to genuine believers and preparing for those to come.
The battles of the Kingdom of Heaven continue, and with each person who moves beyond their fears and TESTIFIES to the truth they have seen, the closer we can come to confronting the corruption of the Earth.
(One small critique sorry Madonna. The burning crosses were probably not the most sensitive motif to use. Otherwise thank you for your service)
