How Do We Know? A Pause to Review The Straight and Narrow

First and foremost, I wanted to say that I've missed you guys!  I took a little break from posting in my blog in order to prepare for and execute my album release. Aside: If you haven't purchased my album yet, its available on iTunes.  Just search for my stage name: Marc Danyell.  If you don't use iTunes, feel free to purchase it directly from cdbaby.com/marcdanyell.  If you have HAVE purchased my album, I want to say thank you.  Then commission you to tell 10 people to buy my album :-).

Okay, Okay...I'm hear to write, not talk about my wonderfully crafted, great sounding album.  Speaking of the album, I will get back to writing the meaning behind the rest of my songs following this blog.  I don't want to let that fall off, as I feel its important that the listener understand where I'm coming from [from whence I come...take THAT English Teachers everywhere].  

So today on my drive to work, I began to just think about my life and if I've lived a good enough life to get to heaven.  I have to say that this is one of the hardest things to ponder.  One thing that makes it hard is that there are just SO many humanity-tainted doctrines out there on Christianity and/or your relationship with God.  If you ever have a chance to just bounce from denomination to denomination, you'll realize that they all use the same bible...but have different focal points that become the foundation of their faith.  I wont get into a theological analysis of each, but I do want to point out the stress and strain that it puts on a seasoned believer (not to mention a new believer). Who's right? Who's wrong?  They are all right? So who's righter? [I know...."more right"...I got this...I know my grammar!!].

But even outside of the humanity-tainted doctrines out there, I find it still difficult to even measure something like "How well am I pleasing God."  Measuring your relationship with God isn't like measuring your album's success, which is directly linked to your sales and popularity. ....But is it? Jesus talks to us in Matthew 7 when he says that "every good tree brings forth good fruit; but corrupt trees bring forth evil fruit.  A good tree can't bring forth evil fruit, nor can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit" (vs. 17-18).

It's really much more simple than I am making it out to be.  If I want to know how I'm doing in my relationship with God, all I have to do is take a look around me.  Now I'll point out that we shouldn't get this confused with whether or not everything around us is GOING well, because that was never part of the deal.  Rather, if we see the people that are around us...their relationship with God getting stronger.  That tells the story of how success our relationship with God truly is greater than anything else can...

I learned something today...nice!  Be blessed!!