Progress, Not Perfection

Everyone experiences faith differently in their lives. It can be unfair to proclaim one's faith as stronger or more serious than another person's since everyone's relationship with God is different. James Fowler wrote about how faith develops throughout our lives and I had the pleasure of reading a lot of his work during my undergraduate degree. I found a graphic that summarizes his stages of faith development to save you four years of intensive study: When we are very young, our idea of faith is quite limited. We copy the things that our parents do, but according to Fowler, we do not really have an understanding of spiritual concepts just yet. Jumping to adolescence, one can see that in the struggle that teens have to form their own identities, they question religious values of their parents and communities. This is a normal part of growing up. We do this in many aspects of our lives, so it would be kind of strange if no teens questions the religious beliefs of t

Do you ever feel like someone doesn't care about you? Conversely, have you ever been told by someone that they feel like you don't like them? This can happen quite easily because everyone has a different way of expressing love, and want to receive love in different ways. Dr. Gary Chapman has written about this dilemma and came up with the five love languages.  1. Words of Affirmation When people have this as their love language, it means that they feel loved when people express compliments and appreciation verbally. People with this love language might be more likely to write love letters to others and give sincere apologies.  2. Acts of Service For this love language, people often do things to ease the burden of others. People with this love language are likely offer to do things for someone or pamper a loved one. They are good at making behaviour changes after a conflict. 3. Quality Time These people are the type to keep their phone away when they are wi

Why do we suffer? What is the meaning of our pain? These are tough questions, and for many of us, it feels like there aren't answers. I went to church at King's University College this past Sunday and one part of the homily really stuck out to me. He said that he wants to write a book titled, "Gifts That Suck", since so many of the bad things that happen in life seem to be the path that lead us to know God more, understand ourselves, and bring us closer to others. I really thought about this is my own life, and I realized that this is true for me as well. There are times when it feels like everything is going wrong, you know? Like when you get a bad mark on a test that you studied hard for, and your friends aren't being supportive of you, and when you finish the show you have been binge watching on Netflix. Some things are easier to get over than others. But let me tell you this: I had a really hard time in my first year of university. I didn't really kn

Several years ago, I watched a Ted Talk by David Brooks which is titled, "Should you live for your resume...or your eulogy?". I particularly love this video because it taught me the importance of thinking about thinking in terms of how others are impacted by me. Click here to view the video . "Adam one's motto is success, Adam two's motto is love, redemption, and return" Have you ever felt that these two aspects of yourself are at odds? Unfortunately in our world, there is often a difference between doing things for the sake of love and doing things that will bring us success. Furthermore, sometimes the distinction between the two is so broad that we feel we cannot possibly choose. It can be simple things, little decisions that you make every day which can build into these two models of virtue. What do you chose to do when you wake up in the morning? Do you choose to think about God? It can be so hard when we are caught up in the day to day success-se