I am currently taking a religion class at school and one of the assignments I have a choice of how to share what I have learned. The class focuses on the second half of the New Testament. I have different choices to make of what to study from. I decided on 1 Thessalonian 3-5; 2 Thessalonians 3:1-6,11. In it Paul was giving counsel to the members of the church at the time. First, I had to find attributes that Paul counseled the members what they needed to improve on. I feel that we can take it and apply it to our own lives for what we can improve on. There are three attributes that I felt I could improve on. There were more but these three stood out the most to me. The first being to love one another. I have been taught this my whole life. My mother is a great example to me of how to love others. It doesn't how one looks or acts, my mother treats everyone as God would want her to, as a child of God. I sometimes find myself judging others in my head but then I correct myself by telling myself that I don't really think that way. My goal for when I start to judge others or to feel frustrated and mad at someone, is to remind myself that he/she is a son/daughter of God and that I should love them and treat them as such.
The second attribute is to pray without ceasing. The picture to the left is one of me when I was little and I had fallen asleep during family prayers. There are times that I feel that my prayers are not as heartfelt as they could be. I'm afraid that I have gotten a little lazy in saying my prayers. Sometimes I am too tired to sit up or kneel by my bed at night, so I say my prayers while lying down. But on the days that I sit or kneel, I feel closer to God and that He hears my prayers. Ever since I was little, I have had a phobia of kneeling by my bed to pray. I blame it on the movie Little Monsters. Ever since, I just can't kneel by my bed, so I sit or kneel on my bed. My goal is to sit/kneel every night before bed and say my prayers. When I say my prayers, I remind myself that I am talking to God as I would a friend who cares about me. I always begin my prayers with thanking Him of different things in my life. Then I ask Him for help for myself or for those in my life or the world in general. The times that I have spoken to Him as I would a friend, I feel closer to Him and I feel like I get more out of my prayers.
The third attribute is to abstain from all appearance of evil. For those that know me, know that I love watching TV shows. I have many that I watch, but there are some that I love more. There are also a few that I would say are probably not the best shows I should be watching. I go through my phases of trying to cut back on TV or stop watching the shows I think are not good for me to watch. But then I get bored and start watching them again. Thanks to Hulu Plus and Netflix, there are a lot of shows I can watch. But my next goal is to stop watching the shows that I don't think are good for me and to stop watching them for good. Today I have only watched one and a half episodes of Doctor Who from season seven. I have seen Doctor Who so much and I love the show, that I feel comfortable in stopping in a middle of an episode to finish things. Today, I have done laundry and homework and have not watched any current TV shows. I feel very proud of myself and that I have been productive. I am going to work on allowing myself to watch a current TV show only after I have completed homework for the day.
The first being to love one another. I have been taught this my whole life. My mother is a great example to me of how to love others. It doesn't how one looks or acts, my mother treats everyone as God would want her to, as a child of God. I sometimes find myself judging others in my head but then I correct myself by telling myself that I don't really think that way. My goal for when I start to judge others or to feel frustrated and mad at someone, is to remind myself that he/she is a son/daughter of God and that I should love them and treat them as such.
