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When the Apostle Paul went to Athens, he preached before a group of people who seemed to have an idol god for every occasion. What was really noble about these folks is that they didn’t want to offend any god. Cute.

In Acts 17:22 Paul says: “…Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious.” (which is to say very religious). Paul could say the same thing about America.

With all of our wonderful freedoms, religion fits right up in there as being the most important. You see, we don’t want government telling us who, how and when to worship. We as Americans don’t really like to be told anything.

With that said, isn’t it ironic that we even believe in God? I say this because we can’t even be pleasing to God if we don’t believe (Heb. 11:6) and with our belief, the creator of the universe is expecting humble submission from us.

That means the only choice we really have is to serve God or not. If we choose to serve Him, then the life that we life in the flesh is lived by faith in the Son of God who loved us and gave Himself for us (Gal. 2:20).

So then He is in control and all of our decisions would be done in a way as to make Him proud. We would live lives with the purpose of leading others to Him and allowing them to experience the liberties we have in Christ.

This sounds great on paper, but in practice, it’s not so good.

Many who profess a belief in God do not live for God. Less than many don’t read their Bibles and most of those who do, are reading without understanding. Most of us who have children live contradicting lives before them and many who grew up in the church, do not darken the doors as adults.

Within just the Catholic Church, there are more than 61 million Americans who have associated themselves as Catholic. How many do you think attend regularly?

My point here is not a call for us to return to church. It is also not a plea for us to live righteously. My emphasis is for us to be more spiritual than religious. My plea is for us to build a personal relationship with God on our own (meaning without a middle man) and allow God to connect with us without religion.

Religion is simply man’s tradition. It is the enemy. It divides us! Religion makes one person say to another: “You are wrong and I am right. It produces religious nuts that go about trying to make others do things their way. Our traditions need to be nailed to the cross. God left us His words to live by. We have Jesus’ life recorded for the purpose of knowing how to live a life honoring our Father in heaven. Jesus taught about family and excluded no one. Religion today is pretty good about excluding drug users, felons, gays and lesbians, and the poor.

Jesus would have never done such a thing!

The Bible teaches us that God is spirit and those who worship Him must do so (with our spirits) in spirit and (according to His revelation) in truth (John 4:24).

My friends, going to a place of worship on Sunday with people that you love is great and hopefully that fellowship extends beyond one day per week. But if you do not have a personal relationship with God where an exchange of information is taking place, conversing daily with an inner joy of the Holy Spirit, then you are lacking much.

I would encourage you to read Psalms 1. It only has a few scriptures, but they echo this message. Start with Psalms chapter 1 and just keep: Reading Until Something Happens (RUSH).

Stevie Wonder wrote a song entitled “Love’s in need of love today.” This song appeared on his mid-1970’s album called “Songs in the Key of Life” – still one of my favorite albums of all time.

It’s interesting that in the 70’s, Stevie could write a song so profound and so true. It made me wonder that if a song like this was needed in the seventies, what would this song say today.

He said, “Love’s in need of love today. Don’t delay, send yours in right away. Hate’s going around breaking many hearts. Stop it please, before it goes too far.” Stevie’s vision explains the darkness of racial prejudice and despair in the world and thought that if we all could just help love out, it might survive.

The difference in the world today and in the 70’s is that back then, the world had somewhat of a conscience. You could speak the truth and people actually had a harder time violating it in the 70’s than they do now.

Hypocrisy runs wild. Things that are evil are now acceptable. Wrongdoing can go on now and if the media doesn’t tell us it’s bad, we don’t care. Just how did things get so turned around? Let me give you a few examples of what I’m talking about.

We have been pushing democracy off on other countries, telling them it’s better for them. We tell them that it’s the best way to run a government – for the people and by the people. We sent this message to Iraq, remember, in 2000. We boasted about voting, but had a hard time counting our own votes. We told them the freedoms we share, but the controversies of the 2000 and 2004 elections didn’t speak of freedom at all – just hypocrisy.

We watched for almost a decade (eight years to be exact) as the Republican Party destroyed the fabric of countries future by leading us into a bogus war and spending trillions of dollars. Now, the Democratic Party feels they must spend trillions of dollars too. The first group says it was spending money for the safety of America. The second group claims they’re spending money on the welfare of America. The truth is that when you look beyond the surface of what each is saying you won’t find any help for America – just hypocrisy.

Michael Vick was in the prime of his life when our society took taxpayers money to prosecute him for running or housing a dog-fighting operation. It seems that Mr. Vick should have been eating these dogs – then it would have been ok. The reason you ask? Well, if you (and the animal rights activists) really take a hard look at the way we raise, treat, and slaughter chickens, pigs and cattle in this country, you would understand my point. Are these not animals? Or does it magically become “OK” if we’re eating them? I wonder about the countries that eat dogs. If Vick goes to jail for what he did, shouldn’t we be at war with those countries that eat the covenant dog? Once again, this is nothing but hypocrisy.

The Bible says in 1 Peter 4:8, “Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins.” This must be the fix. Love. The only way love will cover a multitude of sins would be if we let it. We would have to begin loving people through their troubles. We would have to start loving good rather than evil. We would have to try to practice what we preach and only place expectations on ourselves.

Is it possible for us to choose to build up one another rather than to tear down each other? Is it possible for us to help those around us first, before traveling abroad to assist in any relief efforts? Is it possible for us to love one another so much that we become the place we say we are?

That’s my goal. Is it yours?

When you think about it, we live with a lot of pain.

Some of us are living with physical pain – like arthritis or back pain or both. Some of us take medication for mental depression in its various forms. Still others struggle with spiritual pain and agony, asking God to deliver us from guilt, envy or other demons that possess us from time to time.

And then there’s emotional pain.

This is the pain that is the result of something or someone. It’s pain that seems to be preventable – the kind that never should have happened in the first place.

But it does.

In most cases, it happened because we let the wrong person get too close. Or we disclosed a weakness that someone exploited. Nevertheless, some careless so-and-so went through our emotions like a monkey in a chemistry lab and ruined things.

What’s even worse is that sometimes we’ve had to tell the person what they did – that they had wronged us in some way. Then to make matters even worse, the offender, upon being confronted about what they did, either denied it or made it seem like we were being too sensitive.

This is a poison in our society – that people can “wrong” others and nothing be done about it. Racism is managed like this, as well as gender bias, age discrimination and gay-bashing.

One of my clients is experiencing such emotional pain – and with good reason.

She is dealing with a former fiancé who claimed to love and respect her, only to end up in bed with her 16-year-old daughter. Since the incident, the daughter is estranged from the mother and has threatened to run away with the jerk – I mean the guy. My client feels hurt, betrayed, duped, stupid and inadequate (all her words).

An emotional wound feels worse than the other three types of pain because of the way we process it. We process it straight through to the soul – that’s why it hurts so much.

And the closer you were to the person … well, you get the picture.

There is one more level that makes it worse. It literally adds salt to the wound. It’s when someone unrelated to the incident tells you to “get over it.” They say not to let it get you down and you should focus on something else.

Well, I’m telling you that you need to take the time and release that feeling from your body! It needs to be verbalized and in most cases you need to let the person who wounded you know what they did.

Whether they apologize or even acknowledge your wounds, you must tell them.

If they have died or it is literally impossible to tell them, you need to write it down and send it off – to the North Pole, out to sea in a bottle or in the air with balloons – write it and get rid of it. This will help you immensely!

The next thing you need to do is take inventory of who you may have hurt and seek them out! Apologize to them, because you have walked (or you’re walking) in their shoes. Patch up the wounds you have caused in order that you won’t repeat the same actions that hurt you.

Don’t allow 2010 to end without doing this – and don’t carry your wounds into the new decade!

With all the stressors of life, it seems that we get caught up in the hustle and bustle of living. The Eastern culture has somewhat of an edge on us when it comes to such matters because they have a different priority list.

Our list begins with things like work, money, work, bills, work, shopping, work and work.

I know for me there were times in the past where I would not see much of my children until the weekends because of a hectic work schedule. And we tell ourselves that it’s all for the family. We say that we must do this to live the American dream. And that’s what we all need right?

I remember a scene from Tom Hanks’ movie, “That Thing You Do” where the father of the drummer owns an appliance store and one morning before the store opens, he’s reading the newspaper ads and sees that his competition is open 12-6pm on Sundays.

This movie was set in the ‘50s, so you will understand better his statement.

He said, “I don’t think I want to live in a place that you have to be open on Sunday to support a family.”

How do you feel about that?

Something has happened to us.

Blame technology. Blame the workforce. You can even blame it on the alcohol, but it doesn’t change the fact that somehow, someway America got in a big hurry.

Everything is rush, rush, rush all for what?

To end up in a hospice surrounded by immediate family who you don’t really know you too well. We cannot get any of this time back! Time goes forward, not backwards, so we need to do something about this now!

My suggestions are simple: Take some pleasant and enjoyable from your childhood and expand it or repeat it with your family.

An extremely happy time for me was whenever my mother would make homemade biscuits.

My mom was born in Alabama — Greensboro to be exact – and she and my Aunt Bea (Yes, I have an Aunt Bea and my last name is Mayberry) can just flat out cook!

I’m not saying that just because I grew up on their food. They were great hostesses and folks ate at our house often.

We would wake up to the smell of bacon, sausage or salmon croquettes, grits and homemade biscuits. Never had any better. I’ve had a lot of biscuits from all over the US, but never like my moms. I don’t know if she put her foot in them, spit in them or what, but it didn’t matter – they were stupid good!

I decided recently to get my siblings together with my mom and dad and cook breakfast together. My mom hadn’t made homemade biscuits in decades. It was interesting that when we got together, my siblings thought that I had some big announcement to make.

It seemed like there was even a little hesitation which proves we don’t get together enough.

Many things occurred that reminded me of why we don’t get together. Things like people coming late, not contributing and lying about their whereabouts – isn’t that like family?

And I wouldn’t change it for the world! This is what we call living without regret.

Often times, we live our lives and function like we’re an island – until someone dies.

It is only then when we grieve that we realize that we didn’t take the time to enjoy life. We’re hurt that somehow, in all the rush, the people that really matter were forgotten.

Talk to anyone who has lost a beloved mother or father or even a sibling. You’ll find universally that they would give anything to get the time back.

Please! I beg you…take the time to stop and smell the roses. Whatever that means for you, don’t let the simple joys of life get away from you.