There’s a constant pressure on me. There’s this nagging that I feel when I’m contemplating what I’m doing. What on earth am I even doing? I’m getting ready for this trip and by doing so I feel slight changes in my normal life. It’s not drastic or completely blatant but once I began to actually take my faith seriously and prepare for this trip, I noticed a slight change in my life. It was a subtle shift but it’s like I was taking another route. It was as if I chose to take another turn on this road of life and venture towards this bumpy path with challenges along the way that leads to new situations and lonely deserts. It’s a path of the unknowing.
And yet it’s still subtle and it’s noticed only when pondering deeply on the situations of my daily life. There’s these faint changes in my friends behavior towards me that I have never felt before, people I thought who would be there for me have become some what distant and I’m beginning to notice how small challenges will often arise to test me.
I’m baffled because there’s this need for perfection, It’s this standard I find myself having to abide by because if I don’t follow this code then I am a hypocrite and everything I’m doing is a facade.
If I go out and party it up before I leave then why am I even going on this trip? Why would I even want to go to other countries and talk about Jesus and do what he told his disciples to do? I have to exemplify what I believe and that is a hard process. It’s still a work in progress and I constantly have to remind myself why I am doing what I am doing.
In the past, I didn’t have this rule of thumb. I saw fit to do whatever pleased me. I was this on and off Christian, trying to find my own path. I was the seed thrown on the rocky path, never taking root to my beliefs, leaving when things became hard.
I was completely for the philosophy of the individual finding its own meaning and doing whatever it wanted to achieve this. I valued that the individual creates its own reality based on what it feels and how they perceive situations. This mentality taught me to do what only feels good and solely on what made me happy. I totally abided by this thought process. I didn’t care if I lied to do what gave me pleasure. I didn’t care if I lied to myself on what was happening. Yes our mentality is a great deal of importance and as one thinks, one will become but when one thinks that he can only create amazing feelings and isn’t susceptible to the bad ones, that person lies a great amount to himself.
This is exactly what I was doing. I was lying to myself that I could satisfy my soul through my own means, be it with pleasure, success, and etc. I tried to compensate bad feelings by creating good ones and thinking that was enough.
I came to realize that everything is temporary. Feelings are temporary, anything material that is gained is temporary, life is temporary, success is temporary. Why do I want to make a God out of these temporary satisfactions? Why would I try to fulfill my soul through a mode of temporary pleasures? These didn’t suffice, but I still pursued them.
I ended up getting caught chasing after these satisfactions, for the third time. I knew that whatever I tried to hide, the truth would always come out.
This is what lead me to actually take root in my faith and pursue Christ. Preparing for this trip has showed me how hard it is to actually follow Christ. No I am not perfect, I am completely human and susceptible to failure. I’ve learned that once you place the title of christianity on yourself, you best prepare to be judged for small things that didn’t matter before when you weren’t a Christian.
You will be judged for simply saying you believe in Jesus. You will be judged for all of your actions and how you used to act compared to now. You will be judged for not wanting to participate in partying and the fun things. People will think you are judging them. This is definitely harder than how I used to live. It’s a crazy and complicated path with a lot of pressure on your back, but this is the one that I chose and I don’t regret it.
