This past few months of transitioning in my life have been hard but amazing! I have been able to get to know some amazing new people at a small group in Bloomington and I have been able to become closer to a couple of great friends. I am beginning to see God in new ways. Two things that I learned this past few months is that no one is perfect except the Lord alone and that you should should hate what is evil and cling to what is good. I know that these lessons seem obvious but if you ponder these two thoughts for a while you can see how these lessons need to be applied to your daily life.
We live in a society where we think we need to be a certain way or act a certain way to live a happy life, this is false. No one is perfect but God alone. True happiness cannot be found outside of God. I dare you to try to live a happy life without God, it can't be done. Millions of people have tried and failed...alcohol does not make people happy (ask an alcoholic), money does not make people happy (money comes and goes, just ask Adolf Merckle), and most of the time people do not even make other people happy (have you ever been in crowd of people and still felt alone?). Never assume that everyone around you has it all together because we are all human. The pursuit of happiness requires sacrifice and work but it can be done (just ask me).
On this pursuit of happiness besides loving the Lord, you must also love your neighbors as yourself. This can be hard to do because this means that you have to love that annoying person next door or that co-worker who doesn't do anything right. This even means you have to love your family, and when you come from a broken or abusive home this is not an easy task and most often times can be the most difficult. It is easy to give grace to those outside of our families but sometimes it is our families that need your grace the most. True love means forgiving those who have hurt you and choosing to love them anyways just because, no strings attached. This means turning the other cheek. Even if you know that your chances of getting hurt again are high you choose to love them anyways. Sounds easy, right? Think again. Remember no one is perfect, we all need forgiveness and grace.
That was the first thing that I have learned, the second is this to hate what is evil and cling to what is good. Evil should be hated because it is the opposite of good. I always thought I should never hate anything, I was wrong.
