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Many of us are walking around with so little faith in Good (or God) that we struggle to muster belief in positive outcomes of any kind. With such a limited connection to God (or Good), it’s easy to try and develop a relationship with Good (or God) through someone or something else. It can be any number of things, like relationships, work, sex, drugs, alcohol, spending, or some combination thereof. 

In reality, we all need and deserve our own relationship with Good (or God). We are all allowed to believe we are destined for Good things and/or that God is on our side. The fact of the matter is, the more we believe in Good (or God), the more it turns up in our lives. The better the choices we make, the better our lives get. 

And, let me be clear, this is not the same as saying those of us who act like saints will end up with Ferraris. Nope, nope, nope. I might argue that acting like a saint is bound to get us one thing, and one thing only: Walked all over. 

Good (or God) isn’t about self-sacrifice, self-sabotage, or self-destruction. It’s about focusing on God (or Good) and believing as best we can. It’s about making the best choices we can with the information we have available, without bending over backward to impress God (or Good) or anybody else. 

In my (somewhat humble?) experience, my belief in God (or God) has actually strengthened my backbone. It has made me less willing to tolerate certain kinds of bullBLEEP and better at withstanding increasing pressure. I am more resilient, because I believe I am worthy of and destined for better, and because I know I can handle any hardship that arises through faith. 

I used to be more preoccupied with what other people thought of me, more willing to compromise my own values at the behest of others, more confused about who I am or what I want, and most of the time I was pretty confused about my own goals.

Not any more. 

This transition didn’t happen overnight. I have prayed my little BLEEP off to get here. I assure you, Dear Reader, I started with a complete lack of faith. But through a commitment to just trying something new and believing, trial and error, I am a much different, much happier, much calmer, much more successful, much more faithful person than I was three years ago. 

I didn’t have my own relationship with Good (or God) for many years. I had very little guidance on how to establish one, so I did the best I could with the information I had available, and LAWD, was it messy. Confusing. A BLEEPshow, if you will. 

I tried everything to feel Good (or God), and none of it worked. I still felt deeply unsettled, concerned about every outcome, and constantly on the verge of disaster. 

I used to hate all that self-help gobbledygook about how “we have to love ourselves before we can love anyone else.” The cynic in me thought that was a load of horseBLEEP. Now, I actually think it is even simpler than that - most people who lack faith barely know what love is, so it’s hard to discern self-love from love of others. All of it feels perilous. 

It wasn’t until I started to develop my own relationship with God (or Good) that I began to understand that I can’t get to Good through others. It has to live in me, come through me, and originate in me. I also realized that my version of Good (or God) is uniquely mine and often much different than anyone else’s. Faith in God (or Good) is a deeply personal, very important experience, and many of us have lost sight of it entirely, which is why we keep searching around for external sources. 

The Good news is, awareness and understanding can be reestablished overtime. It is never gone completely. Those of us who are causing the most harm to ourselves or others are the ones who are the most disconnected from Good (or God), but there is almost always a way back. The only problem is that it is upon the individual themselves to do the searching.

There are many, many, many of us lost in the dark who believe they are happier there. They don’t know anything else, they have lost the gift of sight, they are accustomed to life without a sense of Good (or God), and it is not upon us to force them to start searching. 

The best option we have is to develop our own relationship with God (or Good). Start a fire in our own hearts and feed it with things like faith, prayer, meditation, focus on Good, Good deeds, choices made from spirit or soul or the center of the self (whatever you want to call it), and pray that others find their way to their own relationship with Good (or God) in their own time.