I would be honest and say that my faith has never been strong... well, it wasn't. My family wasn't religious, we don't go to church, we don't pray in the morning nor at night. The only time I heard prayer in the house was during Holy Week when we will hold "pabasa" in the house and then it wouldn't be my parents, but other family, cousins, aunts, grandparents, who will do the praying but I grew up in a Catholic school and would be taught the usual prayers and the "value' of going to mass and all those "religious" stuff, but I can safely say that there was never really a deeply rooted faith...
In my teens, I would enter a "new church" where my cousins brought me. They were known in that church, leaders if you'd like to call them that... Here in this church I would grow spiritually. Indeed, I know that going there helped me gain some life realizations and help me reach some level of belief and faith. I came to know about Jesus here, I learned to pray and believe. I learned the value of having a "personal relationship" with Jesus and got to know him a bit more. For a few years, my high school life and half of my college life, I would stay with this church and I was happy. (I will delve deeper into my experiences there in another post... perhaps :P)
But sad to say, life isn't as simple as that... Life would throw challenges my way that shook my faith, my belief and because I didn't have a deeply rooted faith, I stumbled, fell. But I didn't think twice about it and thought that I was alright. My excuse? I know my faith and even if I don't go to church, I pray and I commune with God, so everything's fine, right?
Well, yeah up to a certain extent yes, it was absolutely great to have a "relationship" with God and it will take you up to a certain point, but without proper guidance, fellowship and a real relationship nor a real knowledge of God, then you will falter and fail in the long run. And fail I did. I came home too tired to pray and would mumble a simple word of apology and a promise of a longer prayer time the next day but as I said, challenges in life, always took the better of me. An exam for a major subject in college, so that will be an excuse not to pray, a late night partying or something, I will be too tired to even utter a thank you. Then finally, I just stopped praying.
**to be continued **
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