What's This Life For?

I quote Creed from their album 'My Own Prison'. It brings back memories of a great guy, Chris, who I used to go to church with at Macedonia. He was ridiculed pretty heavily at Winter Camp one year after a sermon that was brought on secular music. I remember us trying to convince him that their was some great Christian music alternatives (ha) and to this day I regret the whole situation. Chris who was in his 30's and was a great guy for us teenagers to hang out with. I remember some nights he would take us out to go out visit elderly from the church. Some nights we would just go play some basketball and he almost always came out to our activities. Eventually though Chris fell away from church. My thinking as a fundamental Baptist probably was "well he is turning his back on God". But in retrospect, maybe he was turning his back on religious persecution. Just using this one example, Chris did great things for us and the church but sometimes just wasn't good enough just cause he listened to some good hard rock like Creed and Metallica.

I have so many of these stories in my life that I've witnessed or even been a part of and pray that I have broken away from my Fundamental, close minded ways. I listen to secular music, sprinkle in a cuss word here or there and I crack up at inappropriate jokes. I'm human just like every one else. So why at certain times of my life did I hold people to standards I couldn't even live up to? I don't know. I guess I was a moron.

But those days are over.

LOVE is the keyword these days. Treat everyone exactly like you'd want to be treated. I want to keep that idea close to my heart.