Only God knows

My colleague, a devout Christian, invited me to a bible study. I felt both honored and loathed. I mean someone sees me as a God-fearing person, but the truth is I'm not that righteous and I am not comfortable when I am around pious people.
But, in the spirit of New Year and I didn't want to disappoint my colleague, I accepted the invitation.

There were four of us at the bible study, my colleague, her two friends from her church and myself. I honestly can't remember what part of the bible that we were talking about. It was something about God being a jealous God, so jealous He carved on the stone as number one commandment "Thou Shalt have no other gods before me"
Then the conversation was applied to our situation as Christians live in the country where Buddhism rules and the locals are strongly devout to their Buddhism.
The discussion was somewhere along how we stayed strong in Christianity.

My colleague shared her principle to never step into temples, no matter how beautiful they are.
Wow. Have you ever seen the pictures of Wat Pho? Wat Phra Keaw or any other Wat (temple) in Thailand? They are perfect examples of highly-skilled and meticulous craftsmanship, equal to glorious and magnificent architecture of gothic cathedrals.
Well, I guess my colleague miss a lot. But more than that, I didn't really agree with her view. I mean what does visiting temple can do to our faith?

Then I dared myself to talk about my relationship with my boyfriend. My boyfriend and I agreed to respect our religions and be supportive. So, every first Sunday of the month, I go to his temple and the rest of 3 other Sundays he goes with me to the church.
The moment I finished my story I could feel their disbelief looks piercing me. But I think, judging and prejudice is also against God's order, so they didn't say anything explicit against my story.
It's just they told me that any kind of idolization is a sin, even a small act like putting up posters of our favorite bands or athletes on the wall.

At that very moment I realized that this bible study is not for me.

I am open for any learning but I think if this bible study goes to the direction where God is perceived as one undisputed and choleric God. I may not be an avid bible reader but I know that God is full of love and never ceases to forgive. He's beyond our little mind. I don't think it is sin to respect other religion. I never have the intention to leave my religion or compare my boyfriend's religion to mine. The same way goes with my boyfriend. We believe that God is a divine power that our human mind can only imagine. We experience God but our capability to define God is limited. So, why do we create more and more restrictions about how we vision God?

I believe as long as we don't hurt anyone in any form, we don't sin. In fact, by learning two religions, my view is widen and my perspective is added.

I forgot how the bible study was ended but one thing I'm happy about is the fact that my friend hasn't changed at all after I told her that I wouldn't join the bible study anymore. Let's keep our religion as a personal relationship between ourselves and God.