Loopholes to God's words

As a kid, I was taught that lying is bad...just like every other kid. So instead of flat out lying, I would bend the truth or even leave out parts of it. I can't be considered a liar if I didn't make anything up right?

Then I came to Christ and I was taught that lying is a sin and it makes God unhappy. I was set on avoiding situations in which I needed to lie. I must say though situations do come up where I can't be completely honest so I did the same thing as I did as a kid, I bend the truth or just leave out some parts.

But as I started learning more about who God is and maturing more myself, I began to realize that even though my words technically aren't lies, my heart was full of deceit. When I bend the truth or even when I decide to leave out certain parts of them, my desire is to deceive the person whom I'm speaking to and God sees that. There's no way to hide our heart's intentions from God, he sees beyond the surface.

There was this one discussion I sat through and we were asked what would we do if someone came in demanding all christians to stand up and step on the bible; if we didn't, then we'd be killed. One guy said "I don't know..the bible is just a book; its not a symbol of God that we worship" (something around those lines). It's true, the bible is just a book; we don't worship it. Other religions have statues and animals and other things which are sacred to them and they worship them but we have a direct relationship with our God and by no means do we ever worship the bible in his place. (Don't get me wrong, the bible is definitely an important book, I'm just saying its not interchangeable with God himself) However, in that situation what is the real intention for stepping on the bible? Is it not because of our fear of death?

So many times I feel people try to find loopholes to God's words. He tells us not to lie so we circle around different things to avoid actually lying. He tells us not to steal and we come up with a million reasons why downloading music is right. He tells us to love others and we can come up with thousands of justifications for being unloving. Yeah the words that come out of our mouth sounds right and I guess it can justify things...but God sees the heart. He sees how we're trying to deceive, he sees our lack of faith in him, our willingness to betray him once things go wrong.

By no means am I trying to condemn anyone, I guess my point is that there are no loopholes to the bible. God tells it to you straight what he wants, he wants us to let go of our past selves and be reborn in him..reflecting who Christ is. There's no way for us to look into God's words and try to find a way to continue living the lives that we led prior to accepting Christ...it just doesn't exist.

He said to them, "You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts" - Luke 16:15 

Walking with God

This blog post carries no lesson, no actual message but simply just a description of my (literal) walk with God today.

If you know me or read my testimony post (somewhere down there) you'll know that I had depression before. During that time period, a friend of mine told me that taking walks make you feel happier because there are antidepressants in the soil. Now, I don't know how true that is (being that it came from a middle schooler at the time) and I never bothered to check because from that day on whenever I have a hard time, I really do feel better after a walk.

As a kid, a walk was a walk. It just made me feel better and it clears my head. But after coming to Christ, its no longer simply a walk for me. My walks are times where I truly quiet myself and just bask in God's presence. I truly believe that God's fingerprints are everywhere; the sky, the trees, everything; if you were to really look, you can see just how beautifully they all come together.

I've been having a hard time recently and I've been wanting to go to Fort Totten for a while now for Quiet Time so I finally decided that I'd go today. I had this whole picture of what I would be doing there, I was going to sit on that rock pathway and just read the bible and meditate on everything that God is doing. So I hopped on a bus and 1.5 hours later the bus driver said "last stop, fort totten" so I got off the bus. "This is not Fort Totten" was the first thought that came to my mind. The last time I took the bus here was a few years ago and the bus literally dropped you off right by that rock pathway you see in my photo. But here I am standing in front of a street with a million houses surrounding me; that was when I saw a sign saying Fort Totten Park and followed it.

I walked in through the entrance of the park which I remember being right next to the rock pathway but I couldn't find the pathway anywhere (it was covered by construction stuff and I completely missed it) and I had no idea where the bus back home was because I half followed the sign and half just walked wherever my feet guided me to. My phone was also running low on battery. It was actually quite crazy but for some reason I was calm the entire time. From getting lost to not knowing how to get home to even the fact that my phone may just die on me before I find my way home; I was completely at peace.

This place was beautiful. I took so many pictures but none of them can do it justice. My pictures couldn't capture the beauty of the autumn sun shining down on the trees and the golden glow that surrounded me. The warmth of the sun felt like a nice big hug, it felt so comforting as if God was saying "its ok I'm right here." I kept walking and stopping to take pictures until I found these benches behind this fire department area and sat down to read. The wind was picking up and the pages just flipped to Matthews 14 and the first thing I saw was "Jesus walks on water" This was quite amazing to me because I've been obsessed with the song "Oceans" by Hillsong recently and its about this passage. Both the song and the passage has been bringing me a lot of comfort because of how well it relates to my struggles.

Although my QT turned out much different from what I had expected, from the second I got there I knew God had planned it all out. If I were able to sit on those rocks or freaked out about getting lost and my phone dying and just went home; I would've missed out on what I had experienced today. I left there with a lightened heart, joy and peace.

I must say though the next time I do this, I must bring a jacket and a spare battery. I was FREEZING.

The Two Faces of Pride

Pride has always been that sin that completely irks me. Not that the other ones don't bother me but I think I'm just a lot more sensitive towards this particular one. I don't know why but when people start talking about how amazing they are or how much more deserving they are in comparison to others, something inside of me just feels weird (and highly annoyed..).

It's something I never really understood, why do I feel that way, and since it doesn't really affect me loving these people, I never cared too much about it. But I think in the recent years, I started to understand why pride bothers me so much. 

I do a lot of talking to people, its one of the reasons why I want to be a counselor psychologist. The conditions of people's heart matters to me and I tend to be drawn to those who are troubled or struggling with something. I've witnessed a lot of fights and people telling me what they hate about the person they're fighting with and ironically its always something that they themselves struggle with (not that they know that or are willing to acknowledge). I don't want to generalize it and be like everyone's this way but from what I've seen, most of the time the thing people hates about others is the sin that they struggle with themselves.

And with that theory, I've come to realize why pride bothers me so much. I am a really prideful person. It's weird to say because I am someone who is very hard on myself and I usually belittle myself more so than brag about how amazing I am. Which is why I named this post "The Two Faces of Pride". Pride doesn't always have to be about thinking you're better or other people are horrible compared to you. Its also you not being able to humble yourself, being falsely humble and not allowing yourself to be vulnerable. Pride is basically you putting yourself as the center of everything. 

I'll be honest, false humility is something I struggle with...a lot. For those of you who don't know what that is, its basically just you belittling yourself and thinking everyone's better/more deserving than you. It sounds like the farthest thing from pride right? I thought so too but I've come to realize that false humility is simply another form of pride. It stems from you constantly thinking about yourself and overemphasizing on what you've done wrong. My friend quoted this guy and he said "humility isn't thinking less of yourself, its thinking of yourself less."

I don't know about you guys but I also struggle with not willing to be vulnerable. It's kind of like how most guys feel like they have to be macho and tough and not show their weaknesses...for some strange reason I'm kind of like that too. Especially around those whom I have issues with, I never want them to see my weak side. Thats mainly because I don't want them to feel like they can affect me or even hurt me, that I'm stronger than they think and I don't want them to have the satisfaction of seeing me break down. Everything in that statement was about me and how I feel and how I want to appear to others, pride is just that. When you look at yourself and are so focused on you...no matter what form that is shown, its pride.

Pride can come in so many different forms, it can even appear to be humble. But God sees the heart, even if we try to mask our pride with false humility, he'll know. I think with that its always important to remember to see ourselves the way God does. Jesus didn't die just for you and not for the person you "dislike". He died for the both of you, equally. You're not any better or worse, you're loved all the same. To be truly humble is to put yourself on equal grounds and willingly with joy placing yourself below others to serve them. That doesn't mean you should treat yourself like trash but simply to think of others first and serve the way Jesus did. After all we are called to reflect his image. 

Peace

"In what ways is serving the Lord difficult for you?"

My sunday school leader asked us this question as they finished up the book of Joshua. I didn't get to go through the book with them and my knowledge of the bible is quite limited (even more so when it comes to old testament) so I can't tell you what happened with Joshua but I can share with you my own thoughts and hopefully they can bring you some encouragement. 

The most difficult thing about serving God to me is that sometimes it means you have to stand alone. Non-christians may persecute you, they might think you're crazy or blinded by religion. Sometimes even your brothers and sisters may question you. Everyone has a different calling and sometimes what God tells you may be different from what others expect of you. This can cause a lot of discouragements and disagreements and if its handled poorly, even broken relationships. It can be a rather painful situation to be in. 

But God will never leave your side. 

When you choose God, this peace and joy will overcome you. I don't know if its the same for you guys but for me I can literally feel it coming from deep inside my heart. That was when I finally realized how shallow suffering really is. I have always been someone whose emotions are strongly connected to my heart; so when I'm sad my heart would feel sad and if I was angry it would feel like a fire raging. This time I can literally feel the depth of peace and joy in my heart compared to the negative emotions. Maybe you're not crazy like me and feel emotions the way I do but God will definitely grant you with peace. Don't give in to the negative feelings and allow his peace to overcome you. 

God is worth the fight; so don't give up and don't forget you're never alone. He will always be with you, helping you and guiding you through every obstacle. All we gotta do is let him in. Keep fighting the good fight! 

Heart of Worship

I've been a part of my church's praise team for a few years now. Its sad to say but I've only come to realize that I worship very differently on stage than I do off this year.

Being the prideful perfectionist that I am, when I'm on stage I tend to focus on sounding right; getting the words right, the notes and if God forbids my leader decides to give me a solo...getting the beat right. I'm so distracted that I forget why I'm even up there to begin with; what being a part of the worship team really meant. It's not like I don't know God is the main focus of it all but somehow my subconscious made it all about me. "What do they think, how do I sound..." I'm singing but I'm not worshiping. 

When I'm alone, I don't have to worry about anything. I can sing the wrong lyrics and clap to the wrong beat, anything and it wouldn't matter (well it would but at least no one else would be there). I can focus on God and the meaning behind the lyrics that I'm singing. They become my prayers to Him (especially when they put my current thoughts/feelings into words). My heart would feel the words that I'm singing, they become real. That is when my heart is truly in a heart of worship. 

(A song that always strikes me whenever I hear it is Live Like That by Sidewalk Prophets. I don't know if you will be able to relate to it the way I have but its my prayer to God every time I sing it.)

Now that I know where I'm lacking, I'm trying to worship the way I would when I'm off stage. It feels great to worship God my way on and off stage. My leader usually sends us his set a day or two before our practice so I'm trying to learn how to digest the songs and not see it as just a song that I need to sing well. Praise songs aren't like regular songs because they're for God. I want to fully understand what I'm singing and convey that message to those sitting in the audience. Our worship should be more than just a song. I'll still try to sound the best that I can but that no longer will be my main focus. Skill matters but what is skill without the heart when it comes to worship? I'm sure he'll still love me and understand how I feel despite my mess ups.

Obligation

People have always told me how God's work should never be an obligation or even a burden.

They're right. 

We should serve God with joy in our hearts and love for what we do for his kingdom. But I can honestly say I only know about a handful of people who serves with joy. There are times where I feel burdened by the things I've done or am doing right now. How did something so joyful become a joysucking job? 

Most people point at the person and call them out for their lack of passion. Maybe its true and that person has yet to figure out how great of a job God has placed in our hands; how important of a job and amazing it is that we're even allowed to contribute a little bit of ourselves to serve his kingdom. Maybe the person still needs to understand that. But maybe, the leaders are also setting up this "you're obligated" environment for those who serve under them. 

I've seen it so often how leaders would tell their members to serve with joy and don't do it for the wrong reasons. But when some members decide that they will not take part in certain things, guilt tripping automatically comes into play. Sometimes people's walks are even questioned (sounds extreme, I know, but its happened). No matter what these members have done before or sacrificed for God, this one time "no" becomes something used to question their walks. How would that make your members serve with joy? Leaders probably justify it as "I'm encouraging them to act with God in mind" but I see members act to shut their leaders up much more often. 

I understand how difficult it is to want something to be done and people just don't want to do it. But I think there's a clear difference between encouraging and flat out manipulating. Priority, I believe is something that most people gotta figure out for themselves and we can give them a nice gentle push towards the right direction from time to time but it should never be forced. 

To those serving the Lord out there, I hope we will all remember that God deserves our time and efforts. Nothing is greater than he and doing his work should be up there on our priorities list. But that should also happen with a genuine heart. Most of us know what we need to do or what we "should" be doing but when we do these things without a sincere heart, our intentions for doing them is literally because its a "christian thing to do". 

"It is not what you do as a Christian that determines who you are; it is who you are that determines what you do." -Victory Over Darkness by Neil Anderson 

Stuck

Have you ever been in a place where you just felt stuck? Things are going wrong in life and you have no idea where to turn or who to go to. Somehow more and more things seem to be messing up and the ditch you're stuck in just gets deeper and deeper. Even for those of us who know God's there find it hard to turn to him when we're stuck in a deep ditch.

So what do you do? Are you trying to find the way out? Or are you just sitting there moping? Quite honestly I mope a lot. But I know the solutions out there. Sometimes the answer isn't obvious at all, sometimes it's not even the answer we wanted but it's there. And trust me, his answer will always be better than whatever we could think of. We just gotta trust that God will reveal it to us when the time is right.

I know I know it's a lot easier said than done. But if we hold on to our belief, if we just hold on to God during these rough times... Things will surely get better. He will never leave us, let alone when we're dying inside some dark depressed ditch. He will carry us out and heal our broken hearts. There's no greater comfort than the one from God, I guarantee that.

It's not easy to rely on God since we're taught to handle things on our own. So let's learn to hold onto God right now, together. Let the comfort of knowing he has great plans to come after this nasty storm fill us with peace. Let us trust and rely fully on God, together.

Identity in Christ

"Have you ever cried yourself to sleep at night thinking you're inadequate and wish to be somebody else?"

My church's college fellowship is studying a book called Victory Over Darkness and that was one of the questions asked by the author.

I'm sure most of us have been through a time in our lives in which we have felt worthless. Sometimes people might say hurtful things and we buy into it. Or sometimes we lie in bed thinking about all our failures and feel incompetent. Sometimes we may feel like we're not good enough, pretty enough, successful enough...etc. It just never ends. A lot of things in life can lead us to feel..well..like crap.

And the reason is? Society has it made so we believe our worth comes from what we possess in life; whether its outer beauty, achievements, material possessions, or even relationships. Society has made it so that even certain personality traits are valued more than others. Those who possess more outgoing and well spoken traits are obviously valued above those who aren't. That's just how the world is.

But is that how the world should be? Or was even created to be?

satan made it so that we would buy into these lies. It keeps nagging in the back of our heads every time we seem to lack something or when we fail at doing something until one day thats all we tend to see about ourselves. The thing that is destroying most of us inside out are lies. Nothing but complete false ideas. God would never look at you and say "You lack all these things and that's why I don't love you as much." We're more precious to him than anything in the world. He loves us despite our sin; nothing in the world can make him love us less if he can love us despite all the crap that we do. Not one sin is better than the other, therefore not one person can be more of a sinner than the other. He asked those who are rich to give up all they own to follow him. He doesn't find our riches impressive at all, all that we possess don't leave earth anyways but they do sometimes, oftentimes, get in the way of us following him. Those who wish to have other's traits; God created all of us to be different parts of the body. Each and every part need each other to function. If we were all to possess the same traits, nothing can be done, there would be only one job in the world.

We gotta start looking at ourselves with God's standards. Yes, we will mess up from time to time and it will be disappointing on our part but God forgives us and we need to too. Don't beat yourself up over the things that God has already forgiven you for.

God doesn't create junk. Each and everyone of us are his masterpieces. It's time to stop believing in lies but see ourselves for who we really are, the precious children of God.

Note to Self: Rely and Trust

"Why in the world does God think I can handle this right now?"

This thought pops into my head countless times a week. There's constantly something going wrong and so much needs to be done yet there's never enough time.

I just don't get it, he created me, he should know by now that I can't handle any of these situations.

But thats the thing, he never expected us to. (atleast not alone) Philippians 4:13 says "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength." Our strength comes from God, we need to rely on him to get through these obstacles. We live in a broken world, things will always go wrong but the reason why we get overwhelmed and worn out isn't because we're given more than we can handle, its the fact that we keep trying to do something we were never asked to do on our own.

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." - Philippians 4:6-7

Trust and rely on God with every situation you're going through, he will protect you and bring you peace. 

Safe Haven

Think back to when you were a child.

What did you do when you heard a scary noise in the middle of the night? 

I'm pretty sure most of us (if not all) would answer "hide under the blankets". 

That place between our blanket and bed somehow brought us comfort and security, it was our safe haven.

I don't know if I'm the only one that does this but I tend to categorize the different areas of my life (ex. home life, school life..etc.) When things get rough at one of the areas, I turn to another to find comfort. Freshman year, I was going through a lot of problems at Stony so I looked for peace and comfort within my home church. When things got rough at home, I built up a safe haven at school. I'm constantly running away from one thing by hiding within another. It worked for a while, that is, until God made me realize what I was doing. 

Some of us are so preoccupied with finding a physical kind of comfort on earth that we fail to realize that God has already built us a safe haven...within himself. He's the ultimate comforter and I can guarantee that you will never find anything more comforting than him. God is always right next to us, ready to protect and love us. Yet we as humans love taking matters into our own hands. Some of us run away from our issues, constantly seeking for a new place to dwell so we won't have to go through any discomfort (or pain). Some of us fight to the death to protect ourselves (we find security within ourselves) but end up hurting people in the process. We do all these crazy things to find peace, security, and comfort when really God was ready to provide us with all of that from the start. 

These safe havens that we build up on earth, whether its in ourselves or in other people, makes us blind to what God has in store for us. And sometimes it takes the taking away of all of our safe havens for us to realize that we've always had the ultimate one. What it all comes down to is, are you willing to come out of that blanket and let God protect you instead? 

QOTD: Abortion

I am not trying to offend anyone with this question, it's just a random thought that popped into my head today. I am pro-life though, for those who may be wondering. 

I remember someone telling me how pro-choice people believe that before a certain period of time or even before birth, the baby inside a woman's womb isn't considered life. What I'm wondering is, if a pro-choice person were to suffer a miscarriage during that period of time, would it be contradicting for them to mourn over the loss of their child?

Someone (a pro-choice person that I know) said it wouldn't be because when someone chooses to have a child, they expect the thing in their stomach to form into a baby and they can picture the life that it will become, and that's why they mourn when its lost. But that statement came off very confusing to me because then wouldn't the deciding factor of whether its life or not depend on whether we want it to be life or not? But then how can we consider one pregnancy to be life and another not?

Pharisees

A pharisee to me is someone who appears christian but their actions speak otherwise. The definition I found online states "A hypocritically self-righteous person." I think its about the same thing, they're basically hypocrites. 

Not many things in life can actually make me angry to a point where my heart is in so much discomfort but this...this pisses me off. Before you start thinking "oh you're being a hypocrite, you're hating on them, God calls us to love..etc." My anger really has nothing to do with the people but everything to do with the action. I even get mad at myself for the same things some times. So don't worry, I don't think they're bad people nor do I hate them.

What bothers me the most about modern day pharisees is pretty much summed up with the cartoon up there. These people try to portray this image of being a "perfect" christian. They go to church every sunday, talk to all their friends about Jesus, pray before every meal and snack and drink and...piece of candy. They're probably serving God as a leader somewhere.

But these very people are also the ones who go out and bully the gays. They're the ones who go up to people and tell them they're going to burn in hell. They're the ones who think its ok to act on God's behalf and punish those who sin. These are the very people who claim to love God and yet they're the very reason why other people don't want anything to do with Him.

I went to a conference last year and we were told to go out and outreach to people we meet on the streets. My team and I met this guy outside of our hotel. He was just sitting there in the cold so we bought him some hot soup and talked to him about Jesus. He had this sense of anger in his voice when he said "the reason why I don't want to believe in God is because of how messed up the history of Christianity is..think about the crusades, why would I want to be a part of that?"

It breaks my heart to know that christians are the very reason why people detest God. The crusades happened so long ago and yet the consequences of their unloving actions are affecting people to this day. It's not fair to Him. God didn't do anything wrong, we're the ones who do bad yet everything we do reflects who he is. We really are his ambassadors. Us, as christians, represent God on this earth (we're NOT God though). Our unloving actions really can affect the way others view Christ. I'm not saying we all need to act as perfect as we can. We're not perfect, we're human and we will sin. God knows that and he forgives us. But what I am saying is that we should strive to live and love the way God wants us to. It's not easy, people can be so un-loveable sometimes but this is what God has called each and everyone of us to do.

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing." 

                                                                          -1 Corinthians 13:1-3

The problem with some christians today is we claim to be doing all these things for God. But if we forget to include LOVE in the equation, can we really say its what God wanted us to do? He called us to love people, even those who are different from us. He loves us all the same and he wants us to love people in that way too. A genuine love and concern for the people in this world. Billy Graham put it really well when he said this "It is God's job to judge, Holy Spirit's job to convict and my job to love." Let God do his part, and let us focus on ours.

"We love because he first loved us. If anyone says "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: whoever loves God must also love his brother."

                                                                        -1 John 4:19-21

Lesson of my Life: Count Your Blessings

I like to believe that I'm a simple person but as I try to figure out myself more and more...I realize I'm quite complicated. I'm quite insecure, I feel loved easily but at the same time I lose that sense of love just as quickly. It's a constant battle for me to remain joyful in all situations.

I seem to find myself stuck in the same situations over and over. I feel like God is trying to teach me something and because I didn't quite learn it the first time, he's giving me the same problem again so I can learn to solve it the second time. As I analyze and evaluate my fleeting emotions, I realized the problem has always been me being unable to count my blessings. The little struggles in my life always seem to outweigh the great blessings God has given me. 

God calls us to rejoice no matter what we're going through, struggles mold us into the great beings God has created us to be and blessings are given to us by God's grace. He won the battle, gave up his son for us...what do we have to complain about? What is it about life that makes us so unsatisfied when he has already paid the ultimate price? This is a lesson I'm still struggling to learn but I hope this post serves as a constant reminder to always count our blessings because God surely blessed us more than what we think we've suffered through. 

Lesson of the day: faith

As you know, I applied to transfer to Queens College last month. I know it takes 8 weeks for them to tell me whether I got in or not but I was really hoping that I can see whether all my documents were received by them. I signed in on the site and somehow I stumbled upon the deadline to apply for Fall 2013 and it was February 2nd. So basically I applied late. I freaked out for a few seconds and all these thoughts came in my head. What happens if I don't get in? What if I have to take the semester off? What do I do? But right when I started to get scared, I remembered the story of Peter walking on water. A gust of wind blew and he got scared and almost fell in. "You of little faith" thats exactly whats happening to me right now. I'm walking on water trusting that this is what God wants me to do, a little obstacle comes my way and I got scared and questioned God's ability.

We fail to realize during these struggles that if God brings you to it, he will surely bring you through it. He's not just gonna let you blindly go on your own, He will provide everything you need to get there. All you have to do is...believe.

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

-Philippians 4:6-7

I Surrender

"All to you, I surrender 

Everything, every part of me

All to you, I surrender

All of my dreams, all of me

No turning back, I made up my mind

I'm giving all of my life this time

Your love makes it worth it all."

You know that feeling you get, when you're so sure that God is calling you to do something extremely outrageous and you've been questioning it for the longest time...well that happened to me this past week.

Since freshman year I've been thinking about transferring to a different school. All for the wrong reasons of course but the thought was there nonetheless. This year, it was brought up again...transferring to a school closer to home. I wasn't for the idea at all, in fact I didn't even give it time to sink in, I was convinced that God wants me to stay where I am at right now. There were a lot of things I really wanted to do with my fellowship here, there are people I really came to love here..I mean I finally came to a point where I was willing to break certain comfort zones so I can be a light for my campus...why would God want me to leave right when I was just starting to make progress?

But here's the thing, Stony became a comfort zone. My faith was comfortable here, even though I thought I was being challenged, everything that I do here doesn't require much any faith at all. It may seem like it on the outside but I know in my heart that even the comfort zones that I break at Stony Brook is within my comfortable boundary. It was nothing compared to stuff I was running away from. It was an escape and for the longest time now, I really didn't want to acknowledge that.

I kept asking God for an answer, a CLEAR answer. One that would just slap me in the face, do you want me to stay or do you want me to go? I kept asking and begging but my own desire blurred out the answer God had already given. Finally during my spring break, God made it clear to me how I'm too comfortable at Stony and how I've been running away from situations I didn't want to face by going there. I know for a fact that he wants me to transfer and I made up my mind about it too but even up until the very last minute I asked God for a sign.

The night I wanted to apply for the transfer, I wasn't able to get on the site. Idk I think the site has work hours to it or something but it told me to come back an hour later a million times so I told God if this is really his will, make the website work whenever I remember to fill out the application tomorrow. I randomly remembered the next day, went on the website and whatdoyaknow...it worked.

Quite honestly, I'm still not too happy about the transferring thing. I'm sad about having to leave IV, I'm sad about having to leave my suitemates, all the freshmans I really wanted to get to know and all the friendships I made here. I am really upset about it but something in my heart is so sure that this is what God wants. For the first time in my life, I am 100% positive about something God wants and that reassurance is keeping me going. Not many people support my decision and even though that bothers me, it gives me even more strength to fight because I know this is what God wants. I finally get to understand what people mean by God makes you do outrageous things that sometimes even the people closest to you wouldn't understand.

This song started randomly playing today and I felt so comforted by the lyrics. I'm not transferring because of other people or because I want to run away, my reason is actually God and God alone. For the first time, I feel it in my heart that God is all I'm relying on right now and I'm basically giving everything I have to follow him.

This may just be the first time I'm surrendering all control...everything... and stepping out in faith alone. 

"No Turning Back, I made up my mind, I'm giving all of my life this time"

RIP 3/11/13

"Rest in peace"

Reality. Hits.

About 2 hours ago today, I was just scrolling through facebook when I came upon a wall post from 2 of my friends. I wasn't reading it but as I just scrolled past it the words "rest in peace" caught my eyes. "Rest in peace"..why are those words used? I looked at the post, I couldn't believe it. I went on his wall "why are so many people saying they love him and they miss him? This doesn't make sense, it can't be true." I was freaking out. I messaged people I haven't spoke to in years wanting an answer and I got it, one of my good friends in middle school took his own life this morning.

Is this for real? Do stuff like this really happen? No, it doesn't..not in my sheltered little Christian world. I'm not stupid, I know there are people hurting everywhere, some might even be friends of mine. But never to a point where it'd be like this. Never have I thought I would be placed in a situation where a friend of mine would pass away. I had the whole "Stuff like that only happen in papers..." mindset and I had no idea.

But reality hit me...finally. I keep thinking about how different this world would be if Christians actually did as they were told. How many broken hearts would be comforted by God? How many lives wouldn't be lost? What if I made the extra effort to reach out to him, what if I cared enough to share the gospel with him, what if he knew that someone loved him enough to die for him? I know its not my fault this happened, but this was definitely a wake up call to me. Tomorrow might not come for some people and we need to understand that. The battle is real and its happening right now. We need to stand up and fight, we need to feel that urgency to fight right here right now. 

God wants us to share the gospel with others because he wants them to understand that Jesus is the only way to heaven. His death on that cross made it possible for us to be cleanse from our sins, the sins that bounded us to a horrible place. We need to feel the urgency to share that with others so that they can also live in eternity with him. Don't be like me and live sheltered from the world, step out into the world and bring back the lost. This will serve as my reminder (I hope yours too) and my biggest wake up call. There is no later...the time is now.

A Lesson of Grace

"Pass up your papers."

Crap! My heart was racing as I gave in my quiz which was a full page full of words...words that didn't answer the quiz question.

I had thought the recitation teacher was giving us the full class time to write an essay so I spent the 20 minutes given writing up the mishaps that led up to the topic I was suppose to write about. I handed in my paper and pulled out another one. I spent a quick 10 minutes writing up the right answer and anxiously waited for class to end to ask the teacher to take it (I am almost confidant I have anxiety issues). 

I told him about what happened and how I messed up. The teacher wasn't willing to take my paper...but he was willing to give me a second chance. A chance, quite honestly, I didn't deserve. 

The teacher was showing me grace, the same grace God has shown me throughout my life. Even today, this second chance was an answered prayer. (you would've thought I would go through such anxiety without asking God for help)

God is faithful to all of his children. He is willing to give us that second chance no matter how un-deserving we are of it. And that's because he loves us unconditionally. 

No matter what we do, no matter what stupid decisions we make, he still loves us.

Break My Heart til it Makes Me Move

Human Trafficking has become a huge thing within my fellowship here at school. For the past 2 years, we've planned (or in this case, is planning) large events to raise awareness for the cause. This cause is also something that God has specifically placed in my roommates heart.

Just last week, there was a human trafficking screening held by some other club on campus.My roommate invited me to attend and I decided to go to gather more information for the event we're planning. As we were coming out from there, my heart was in pieces. My heart broke for all those girls in the documentary, hearing their stories. I was talking to my roommate about how badly my heart hurted for those girls and she asked me if it was because I didn't expect it to be that intense coming to the screening. And it's weird because that wasn't the case. I went there knowing exactly what I was going to see. I did a lot of research on the cause for our last event, I've shed many tears learning about this reality but my heart still broke as if it was the first time I heard about it. I asked my roommate if she was just numb because she has done so much research.

She said "No, I'm just past the point of just having my heart break for them, I want to do something about it."

Having our hearts break for what breaks God's isn't enough.
Sitting here just feeling bad does nothing for the sins of this world.

I understand not everyone will be called to go out and put their lives at stake for human trafficking or live in a 3rd world country building up a church. But God did create all of us to share the gospel, to tell others about him, to LOVE the people he created. How can we say we love someone when we are the ones refusing to show them how amazing our God is? To let them know that Jesus is the only way they can have eternal life? To watch them lead a life that may (I'm not the one to judge) just lead them to a place of eternal suffering?

What so many people fail to understand is, where they are right now is a missions field. You do not need to travel 5000 miles to touch the lives of the lost. There are lost people right here where you live. It can be your friends, your family, coworkers...there's so many people out there who haven't gotten the chance to hear about God. We have all been called to reach out to the broken and help God bring back the lost. We may not succeed, they may not be our's to save, but just planting that seed is enough. God will handle the rest.

Enough

My roommate went to Urbana during the Winter Break and she was telling me about her experiences there. She ended up sharing this video with me which I only got to watch it today. The speaker's name is David Platt, he's the writer of the book I'm currently reading. This message is basically the beginning of his book, its exactly what I read but I realized I missed a point which God used this video to reveal to me.

In his message, Pastor David Platt asked this question "is Jesus enough?" and it hit me, I've always known that Jesus is more than enough, I've sang worship songs on that a bajillion times whether its for Praise team or in the audience during worship, I've even told people that when they were going through difficult times..but does my action live up to it? I don't think so.

Being born in the U.S, I was blessed with a lifestyle that really isn't at all that difficult. There's so many things in my life that I can rely on, nothing I do really takes a lot of faith. My parents provide me with money for school, a warm house to live in, food..and so much more. I have a church family I can count on when I'm facing difficult moments. But at what point is God really all I have?

People who live in countries where loving God is illegal, those people gave up everything to follow him. They put not only their lives in danger, but also the lives of their family members. Some of them tell their family that this is the last time they will see each other because what they are doing for God at the moment may cost them their lives. Because they know how precious God is, they were willing to give up everything for him.

I'm not saying its better to live in a country where persecution exists but what if we took a step back and really see just how blessed we are. Those who live in a country that persecute Christians go out to share the gospel even if it cost them their lives. They're not doing this because they  have nothing to live for, they all must have families and people who love them very much but yet they are willing to risk it all for the sake of other's knowing God. Because they understand just how great God is and how much their people needs him, they were willing to give up everything to share what God's done. What about us? I know so many Christians who can come up with a ginormous list of excuses as to why they can't outreach to people..me being one of them. "I don't want them to judge me, I'm scared, I don't think I'm called to evangelize..." Ok so people look at us funny, some of them may reject us, we may hear some very uncomfortable hurtful things but how bad is that compared to knowing where those people will go after they die and doing absolutely nothing about it. Sharing the gospel is not a gift like tongues where only a few people will have it...its a calling God has given us all.

Like the story in the bible about a man who found treasure in a field. He sold everything he had to buy up that field because the treasure was worth much more than what he owned. Jesus is worth much more than the treasure he found in the field, so shouldn't we be willing to give up everything to follow him? Shouldn't he be more than enough for us so that we wouldn't have to indulge in material items to be happy? We have so much to give, we just need to have the willingness to give it up. Pushing ourselves aside so God can be the center of our lives. God is so great, he's like the entree in a meal, everything else we have is just the special garnishes he blessed us with. We don't have to have them, nor do we deserve them but we NEED God. He is more than enough. 

All About God

The semester started 3 days ago here in Stony Brook. I've reverted back to student mode and nothing feels different. Everything is the same as it was last semester, my suite mates are still just as awesome and lively, my desk is still acting as my study cave, I'm still sitting here attempting to study and yet getting distracted every 5 seconds. Nothing's changed...but that just might be the problem.

For the past 3 semesters, my daily life consisted of waking up late, going to class (sometimes), eating, hanging out with friends, napping, IV and studying. Where was God in all of this? When I prayed for my meal? When I'm falling asleep praying to him late at night? Or the 5 second bible reading I do? Don't get me wrong, I went to church every Sunday but does that really define my relationship with Him?

People have always said "the first step to dealing with a problem is acknowledging it" and quite honestly that's the easiest thing for me to do. But that's just it, I was stuck on knowing the problem and not dealing with it. I prayed about it but never gave God the chance to fix it. I was comfortable with my routines, although I knew there was definitely something wrong about them, I didn't want to leave my comfort zone.

Right before I moved back onto campus, my suite mate (who is also my accountability partner here) was telling me how she created an hourly schedule for herself. She planned out when she will sleep, what time she will get up, when she will eat, when she will have qt...etc. I thought "dang that's gonna take a whole lot of effort to keep up..." She wasn't suggesting the idea to me but I already mentally turned it down. Then Monday came and something hit me. "I don't want the past semesters to repeat itself, it's time to really get out of my comfort zones" I clearly pushed God into a corner for most of my college career, it was time to get him out of there. So I sat there for hours and created a schedule of my own.

The orange areas will be my Break/Food/Study time. I found
it difficult to stick to a schedule with that so I left it blank.

This semester I ended up taking only 4 classes (12 credits) which means I have a lot of time to spare. I feel like God made things this way so I can fix my schedule around him. This semester seems to be devoted to my walk with God, I'm finally coming out of my comfort zone of sleeping my day away and waking up early to start my day off with God. Then every night I'm devoting the time before bed to him as well. During the days I have an hour break between classes, I will be reading the book in the picture above (which is amazing btw).

It's pretty amazing how God arranged everything, my quiet time this morning was about breaking out of your comfort zones and really persevering to do God's will. And it was talking about these people who are still being fed milk despite the fact that they should be at the stage of life where they can eat by themselves. In other words, people are still spoon feeding them the bible when they should be at the maturity where they can feed themselves God's words. And it hit me..God's talking about me. It's been 3 years and I still need to be fed the word (maybe its because I spend 5 secs on it every now and then...) Then the book I'm reading spoke about how American Christians have become so comfortable that they are molding Jesus' image to become more like us rather than us becoming more like him because its more comfortable. (Trust me, the book explains it better)

God is definitely raising a point here, before I go out and do all of the stuff I want to do for him, I must first fix what's inside my heart. Psalm 127:1 says "Unless the Lord builds the house, its workers labor in vain." While I'm talking about doing God's will and what not... how am I suppose to do his will if I don't know what it is?

So for all of you suffering the same "its all about me and my comfort" syndrome like I have, maybe its time for you to make a change, maybe its time to make it all about God. What's holding you back?

Coming to Christ

Growing up, I was suffering from depression. I don't remember when it started but I definitely had signs of it during the 4th grade. I wasn't happy with my life but at that age, depression didn't exist..it was definitely not a word in my little vocabulary book. It was during middle school when the symptoms got worse. I turned to cutting myself to make myself feel better. My logic was physical pain is a lot less painful than the emotional pain I was going through. During this time, I prayed to God consistently every night. I asked him "why do i have to go through this, what have i done in my past life that i deserve this punishment, so many people die in a day yet they want to live..i dont want to live but why am i not the one dying?" Every night for 2 years I prayed for him to take me away. Then one night, I just had enough. I didn't want to deal with it anymore and I just wanted to end it right there. I remember giving myself a set amount of cuts before really deciding it was enough like if im gonna cut myself that many times because life screwed me over that many times..what's the point of living? Literally that night was the 2nd to last for the number that I set and I had my mind set on it but this voice inside my head was telling me "theres more to life than this" and I felt like there was something waiting for me in the future but I had no idea what. Over night, my depression/suicide thoughts completely vanished. 

I never thought much about that night until junior year of High School. A few friends of mine wanted to check out this Christian fellowship and I went with them. I still remember that very first meeting I went to, the leaders were talking about how God can change a person in a *snap* and that just reminded me of how I grew up with years and years of depression but it all went away in just one night. People don't just change something they grew up with over night, maybe God was the one who was behind all of it. I became very interested in getting to know who God really is and I started following my president around to every praise night. At one of the praise nights they wanted people to pray with eachother and 2 of my friends reached out to me and prayed for me. I remember breaking down, I couldn't understand why God would save me that night when I was so willing to give away the very life he created..and how he willingly gave up his perfect son to die for the stupid things I've done wrong...I realized just how much he really loved me at that moment and I fully accepted him into my life.
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My testimony definitely doesn't end here. God doesn't just reveal himself to you and walk away. He works continuously with you, molding you into the person he created you to be. Our testimonies will only grow longer and longer as we continue our path in life but this is my story on how I came to Christ. All my adventures after shall be saved for a different post haha 

----------------------kinda tangent but.....---------------------------------------------
I posted about this before but its simply AMAZING how God chooses to answer your prayers. During the time that I've prayed to him (not really knowing who he was) 

I asked him for death (as in literally dying).... and he killed my old self and made me renewed in him 

I asked him to give me a new loving family (let me find out i was adopted and bring my "real" loving family to me).... and he adopted me into his very own (and blessed me with my church family)

I asked him for a forever kind of love (im very insecure, i never feel good enough so i wanted a love that was secure and i know i would never lose).... he revealed his love to me

It's amazing how God answered my prayers but gave me much more than I could've ever imagined. 

Second Chance by Hillsong

You called my name, reached out your hand, 
Restored my life, and I was redeemed, 
The moment you entered my life, 
Amazing grace, Christ gave that day, 
My life was changed, 
Went from my shoulders, fell the weight of my sin

So it's with everything I am, 
I reach out for your hand, 
The hope that changed a second chance I've gained, 
On you I throw my life, casting all my fears aside, 
How could greater love than this, ever possibly exist

Consume my thoughts, as I rest in you, 
I'm now in love, with a Saviour, 
Bearing the marks of his love

So I wait upon you now, 
With my hands released to you, 
Where a little faiths enough, 
To see mountains lift and move, 
Yeah and I wait upon you now, 
Dedicated to your will, 
To this love that will remain, 
A love that never fails

Guard your Heart

I started a bible reading plan called "How is Your Heart Today?" a week ago. It was quite amazing how every passage I read related to what I was going through/experiencing right now.

Guarding your heart sounds like a topic centered around love. However the plan emphasized how important it is to guard your heart from all things that can bring you away from God. I think this is the point most people miss, its not always about romance but a lot of things can enter our hearts and destroy our relationships with others. 

Proverbs 4:23 says "Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life."

I've read this verse many times but failed to see how serious and heavy the words are. "for it determines the course of your life" The conditions of our hearts determines the course of our lives, how crazy is that? Some people may think this is exaggerated and what not but if you really think about it, is it not true? Whatever we hold dear in our hearts really does affect the things we do, the words we say and the values we hold.

The plan compares our hearts to the White House. The stuff that goes on in the White House is so important to our country that people are trained to monitor who and what gets let in and out of it. Every crack, every little tiny bit of detail matters because that's how important the White House and those who live in it are. Our hearts is the temple of God. The Holy Spirit dwells in there, is he not as important as our President? Is he not MORE important than our president? But how often do we actually monitor who comes and goes from our hearts, how often do we check on the cracks and little fallen pieces? 

It's so easy to mess up that little heart of ours. We can do things out of love, receive a bit of praise for it and all of a sudden our pride takes over and everything we do from that point on is self-glorifying rather than God-glorifying. Or how about a boyfriend just innocently going to his girlfriend's best friend for advice on how to make his girlfriend happy and from that innocent friendship develops a deeper connection that can ruin the friendship of all 3 parties. 

Like the plan says it takes attentive care to constantly guard our hearts from things that can harm ourselves and others.

One thing that stuck out to me was the part that says "we must constantly guard our hearts, not just against traps and temptations but by reading the Bible and seeking the Lord in meditation and prayer." This is probably a given for every christian but it is actually really hard to do. But spending time with God is the BEST way to stay away from sin. When you are so well rooted in the word of the Lord, it is much easier for you to say no to satan. It's just like how Jesus used scripture to turn satan down in the desert, thats how we must do things.

Personally guarding my heart is a huge struggle for me. I let everyone and everything in and when cracks start appearing I ignore it until a chunk falls off. But by then, I'm already at a place where a lot of time will be needed before I can fully heal. Because I don't rely on God for most of my struggles, my struggles brought me down and left me in place very far from God. But that's what it took for me to learn my lesson and I'm still in that process of learning and healing. 

Living a Christ centered life may be a lot of work but hey, it's all worth it in the end. Nothing can bring you more joy than God and when you live for him, amazing things happen. 

Psalm 37:4 says "Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart."

Epic Conference 2013

I was pretty determined not to turn this blog into another diary of mine but I also wanted to share about my struggles and growth as I walk this walk. Living a life for God isn't always going to be all rainbows and sunshine, and what better way to help others relate than to share these real life issues with real life people.

So I recently attended this Conference in New Jersey. I attended the same one last year and I loved it but that wasn't the reason why I came back this year. Quite honestly for a few years now, I had no desire to go to any conference/retreat/praise night. I guess you can say I was falling into a spiritual slump and I had no idea. Just like last year, I rejected my Pastor's invite to attend the conference. There was just too much effort that goes into asking my non-christian parents, effort that requires energy which I did not have. I was pretty far from God at this point, I couldn't feel him when I prayed, I was scared and lost and so very hurt from life.

I am really blessed with a Pastor who truly cares about me though. This year and last, he really encouraged me to go and experience what God wants me to experience there. Both him and his wife reminded me how I need to trust and rely on God rather than myself to get through life's struggles. And, ofcourse, they were right. 

Epic Conference may just be the best thing that's happened to me since I started my college career. There's a unique kind of community there that I can't find within my own fellowship back at Stony.  I look at the students attending and these people actually really care about their campuses and are on fire for God. They come to this conference with their whole fellowship basically and all of them have a genuine relationship with one another. (Some of them flew here from Florida or Kentucky.)

My favorite part of the conference besides the speakers and the people I meet, is definitely finding out the stats for outreach. Outreach is something I am extremely scared of. I'm an introvert for the most part, speaking to people, approaching them and making small talk is all very outside of my comfort zone. But at this conference, we are challenged to go out and reach out to people with the gospel. I stood there extremely nervous and not sure of what I would do, but it's amazing how the second I started approaching people I was no longer scared. It felt almost natural, like it's no big deal. God really does provide us when we do his work and we are all called to share the gospel. Here comes the best part, at the end of the night the MCs would go up on stage and read us the stats for outreach. I literally look forward to the very last stat they read and that is the number of people who came to Christ that day. It didn't matter to me who brought who to Christ, or whether it was the work of our outreach that did it but the very fact that more people were saved, that makes my heart so happy. I understood at that point what the bible meant by people up in heaven throws a party for each newly saved life, my heart was ready to jump out of my chest in joy at that moment. 

I met some really amazing people here. Their love for God shines through them and I am so glad I was able to meet each and every one of them. They were able to help me fight my introvert-ness and really make an effort to step out of my personal bubble to join in on their community. I am really blessed to be a part of Epic and God is so amazing.