Class October 3, 2017: What do I value?

In class on October 3, we discussed what we value and how that relates to what we spend our time doing. We did an activity which involved mapping out what we spent our time on throughout the entire day for each day of the week. This really brought to my attention how I devote my time to some things over others. Two things that I particularly noticed that I spent a lot of time doing is school work and church activities. This activity revealed to me that I do value school(even if I don't want to admit it) and church a lot. These two things are very important to me and have always been a top priority in my life. This was a very neat activity and it helped me to understand why I rarely get 8 or more hours of sleep at night! After class I was thinking about what I value compared to others in my honors class. In class, I chose faith and love as the things I value the most in life.
My faith is something that I hold very close to my heart. I am a Christian and that is the most important thing to me. I chose to call this value "faith" instead of "religion" because I do not see my salvation as a Christian as a religion. It is more like a personal relationship with Jesus. "Religion" implies many rules, rituals, and good deeds. However, my salvation does not come from any of those things. My salvation comes from the sacrifice that Jesus made on a cross. Because Jesus lived a sinless life and died on a cross for the sins of all people, God chooses to extend grace and forgiveness to us and desires a personal relationship with us. If Christianity was based on religious works, then we could never do enough to pay for our sins. But Jesus paid the price for everyone's sin so that we can have a relationship with Him if we choose to follow Him. That is why my faith is a top value in my life: because my enormous debt has been payed and I owe my entire life to Jesus, so I choose to follow Him.
Love is also one of the values I chose in class. I believe that love is very important to have a happy life. Not only do I value love as a result of my faith in Jesus, but I value love because it drives out hate. There are many different types of love: romantic love, love for family, friendly love, and many others. But no matter what, love overpowers hate. In the world we live in today, there is an enormous amount of hate. Mass shootings, terrorist attacks, racism, and sexism are just a few of the ways that this hate is being expressed. People are letting their hearts become hateful as a result of greed and anger. In a world full of hate it is easy to become discouraged. But love drives out hate, just like a light will drive out darkness. When people come together to lift each other up and support one another instead of tearing each other down, we as a society are so much stronger than we are when we hate. Loving people does not have to come from a spiritual standpoint, it comes from being human. I believe that all people have a tendency to love instead of hate, but are influenced to have a hateful heart because of their circumstances. I value love because I feel that by spreading it, even if just one person at a time, it can make a difference in the world that is full of hate.
In class, we were also asked to come up with personal mission statement. After a lot of thought, I have come to the conclusion that I would like for my existence as a person to accomplish two things. I would like to glorify the Creator of the universe with my life, and I would like to show love to as many people as I can. If I did these two things, then I would feel that I have lived a successful life. I feel that I only exist on this earth to do those things. When I sit back and put my life into perspective, I realize that I am not here to make money, I am not here to get a good job, and I am not here to do well in school. There is a much higher driving force for my life, and that is to honor my God while loving others.