How Church has helped me...
I know, it is not the physical "church" which has helped me, but Jesus.
But to say that church has helped me, I meant the act of simply going just to stand,sing,sit and listen to sermons.
At times, I can see all sorts of negative things of the church, the people and her activities. Although there are lots improvements pending, I found that focusing on these negative things can rob me of my joy.
So many times, I felt that it was "useless" to go to church when I have "so many" other things to do.
But, so many times too, I find "God speaking"...ok, that sounds so "spiritual"...In plain words, there will be at least a few words which will touch my heart, be it encouragement or even rebuke or a simple reminder.
I find that I am not humble on many occasions when I criticize the church. Times like these show that I have pride. Again, there are definitely are irritating issues occurring, no church is perfect. But, sometimes, I find the problem is just simply ME.
This reminds me of an analogy. There are people who criticize the education system. We blame lecturers or teachers for not being good enough. Etc Etc. At the end of it all, we still had to take the final exams. We still had to leave the education world and start work.
Obviously, there are those who pass or fail in the exams; have "good or bad" careers.
Conclusion: We have the same general issues to face but doing well is still a choice.
So, in short, church has reminded me about things I forgot and helped me grow. When I needed to hear "those words", they did come. Hearing and then doing is another topic. But to not get to hear at all, that's not going to help isn't it?
If I stopped going, I would have missed out.
There are times, even when I was sleepy( physically or spiritually), I still received some of "those words" which "woke me up" at the right time.
