Religion

What is Religion?
In one of our old children's dictionary at home it says, "Belief in God or gods" "A specific system of belief, faith and worship."

I looked the definition up online, and found this definition. "The belief in a superhuman, controlling power." 

 WHAT!?

Okay, so I talked to my son about that definition. When I first read it, I took it as God is controlling over us, which is NOT true. Yes, he gives us guidelines, but we can choose to follow or not. My son took that definition as God controls the earth, sun, weather, etc. Well, ok, maybe, but God does have to follow the rules of nature. 

Anyway, back to why I chose this topic for my blog today. I hear a lot of comments from people I know. Many times these comments suggest that God is not a loving god, that He wants to control us and we have no say so in anything. This is just not true. It is correct that He gives us guidelines to follow, and if we don't follow them correctly there can be bad consequences. For example, if we smoke, we run a high risk in developing cancer or heart disease. If we choose to drink excessively, we can run the risk of becoming an alcoholic. On the flip side, if we choose good things we can have good consequences in our lives. Take care of our body and eat properly, we can be blessed with health.

Now, that being said, some people who smoke their wholes lives do not get sick, some who take care of their bodies do get sick. So, what's up with that?  Well, we have been put on this earth to overcome trials. Each of us have different ones. Sometimes because of another persons action, we suffer; for example when I was 13, I had a friend of mine run over and killed by a drunk driver. Horrible thing! She was minding her own business coming home from a friends house...innocent, and in the blink of an eye, she was gone. This was a trial her family and friends had to endure. 

Heavenly Father gives us guidelines for us to follow. These are commandments. We can choose to obey or not. He will never change His commandments. He is a never changing god. If He did, it would be like Him changing the rules in the middle of a game. I feel that our society is trying to change God's rules in the middle of it all. It is not up to us to make changes in the commandments. 

Yesterday during our church service, someone made a comment that I thought was very good. They mentioned that we have certain rules or commandments to follow, and just because we have a vote that makes them right in the laws of man, does not make them right in the laws of God. We cannot vote to make sin not a sin. 

All of us sin. None of us will become perfect in this life. Some of us struggle all our lives with certain things. Sometimes we look at others and think they have no struggles. We think their life is just..."hunky dory." Sometimes people struggle with thoughts. This is something we probably would not recognize as a struggle because we don't actually see or hear it. 

Sometimes, our struggles might change. I do know that while I have endured struggles in my life, it could always be worse. Sometimes I start to feel sorry for myself, and then I realize there are others out there with worse problems. That's not to say that my struggles are not hard, but it is to say, that my struggles are something that the Lord knows I can handle. It is like that for all of us. He will never give us anything we cannot handle.  

I have some say to me that because I don't believe a certain way, that I am judging. This is not so. I choose to live the way the Bible and the Book of Mormon teach us. There are a lot of things I know are sin that the general public do not look to as sin. One being sex before marriage.  I choose to mention this because most people will disagree with me. It is very plain in the scriptures. Exodus 20:14 "Thou shalt not commit adultery." That is one of the Ten Commandments. 

Well, I'm not going to go on anymore, except to say, that I am grateful for the knowledge of the Gospel in my life. I know without it, I would not be very happy. I can honestly say that I do KNOW that for a fact. The Gospel has allowed me to become who I am today. I do have a long way to go to be what I want to be, but having that correct path to go down makes things so much easier. Right now, I am going through some trials of my own, and if it weren't for the Gospel, I would be very lonely and sad. Daily, I feel the comfort of the Lord, and know eventually, this will end.

And another trial will be waiting for me.