Since I want this to be a continuous blog, I want to write in separate chapters: I haven't written since my first chapter, but I thought as a new year's revolution (or is it resolution?) to start writing about spiritual matters and my walk with God and the struggles and joys of being a Christian. Frankly, I was not as close to a church before I started going to college, but my church really encourage me to explore my relationship with God. A lot of interesting questions have came by such as what is missionary, the representation of Christ in my life and my environment, and the boundary of respecting one's wishes to not know about God and urging one towards Christ.
August 25, 2017 from 12 to 1:30 am
This would be an interesting blog post. mainly because I want to dedicate to writing about my experience about something that I have been struggling with a long time, something that I never really spoken out loud in fear of being called out as narrow-minded, too idealistic or plain naive.
However, I feel that the Lord is calling me to write about my struggles, especially when I see a lot of people falling away from God. Knowing people who fall away from God made yearn to understand why people want to fall away from Him or would turn away from me whenever I mentioned Jesus or God. It feels painful to know that someone rejects God, but even myself have fallen away from God in amidst of my bitterness and yearning to belong with everyone else. When I was straying away from God, thinking I know enough and survived with friends and family, I then realized that everyone around me is searching for something or someone to fill a hole. It is a hole that only Jesus can fill, and those who have not struggle so much were those who follow God steadfastly. I would find myself asking them to remind me to stay with God and to let out my strife to them. I remember one time in senior year in high school I visited my beloved teacher and cried in front of him because I was so heartbroken of having a friendship I cherished so much be broken by distance and nonavailability. When I was crying, my teacher prayed for me and listened to me, and it reminded why I need to be with God. At that time, I still was not in a church ever since my family stopped going in 2010 and the Christian club I was in was going through struggles of holding together due to lack of membership and poor planning. I did not feel really connected to God, but I know I need to. I continue to struggle, trying to pray more, trying to read the Bible more, trying to be honest with God, trying to be a Christian. However, I still feel like I fail.
One lingering feeling that always drags me down is how to talk to other people about God. Here in the Bay Area, there are many ideas floating around about Christianity, often misconstrued and packaged as way for people to categorize and handle anyone who is called as a Christian. Walking around wearing my "Jesus is Enough" shirt does not feel safe around here sometimes. I feel like people are analyzing me and my intentions as if I have to act a certain way for them to know how Christians act. I'm not sure what they expect, but I often feel stuck when they asked me why is Jesus enough. I remember the verse, "But when they hand you over, do not worry about how to respond or what to say. In that hour you will be given what to say, For it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you" (Matthew 10: 19-20 NIV). After I hesitated for a solid ten seconds, I give a wimpy answer like "This world is broken and full of pain and Jesus can take the pain away" while the person gives me an unconvinced face. I feel defeated and wonder where is the Holy Spirit or that I did not let the Holy Spirit to speak with me because I still have frustration towards God. I am not sure honestly, but this moment does bring up to another point: I want to help people to be saved, but they do not want to....and that hurts me especially those who said they know God and stuff, but do not pursue them. I admit I am, was one of them (you can tell I am not confident in myself hahaha) but it is something that continues to drags in my mind.
I heard countless times on why people criticize about God and Christianity especially when there's the concept of people who do not believe in Jesus be sent to hell. Man, I can list them like the criticism of the verse of stoning adulterers, no homosexuality allowed, how restrictive and disrespectful of forcing people into Christianity, how those who are Christians are not acting like Jesus and are hypocritical (and have a political association), the Bible is a myth with no historical evidence (and there is historical evidence, more than The Iliad https://carm.org/manuscript-evidence ), the Christian fellowships are cults, too divisive with many denominations (my personal complaint since there is one body of Christ, so there should be one denomination which is why I did not put down my religion in the SAT questionnaire), and there is evidence that God does not exist with philosophical proofs likes Kierkegaard's proof that God's existence cannot be proven and the possibility of extending human lives and exploring other universes and forces that explains why certain "miracles" happen as an unknown reason that does not acknowledge God, how come does God allow suffering to happen, and most of all: telling the people we love that they will go to hell for not believing in God while those who say they are Christian act as if they do not deserve heaven compared to those who do not believe in God....
You can tell I have done some listening to people since I cannot come up with this list myself or with Google.
But I am at a point where I need to be vocal about God. I am not the type of person to argue and would sometimes resort to self-preservation to protect myself, but I'm getting tired of listening to people criticize about God and Jesus and me doing nothing about it other than shrugging it off.
I do want to say that this idea came after reading about the Bible specifically James 1 and 2 on August 25, 2017 and editing my mom's book Within the Veil, which is a book ya all should read! But I think most of it came from the desire to talk about God. If I am still wimpy and stuttering in my words, then I can at least write a smashing blog article as my roommate is sleeping.
I want to leave off this mini chapter with my idea: problems faced when straying away from God and hanging out with people who have similar struggles along with stories of how the people around you can affect your relationship with God.
I should mention my bursts of writing moments comes sporadically; I cannot predict when I can write the next one but it would be nice to simply write out my ideas without fear of sleeping in too late.
Goodnight! -1:26 am (btw I am surprised I can write without looking at my keyboard in my dark room)
January 7, 2018 3:28pm to 4:48pm
I am back from my church in Oakland, and I don't think I ever attended two different churches consecutively. Yesterday I went to Crossroads in my hometown and today Christian Layman in Oakland. Yesterday I sat with my family and today I mixed in the worship music on a soundtrack with help from a church friend on the sound board team. My family was wondering why I would go to the church in Oakland, and I replied that I made a commitment to serve the soundboard team. Plus I wanted to see how my friends are doing. It was nice to see my little friend Emi. I was surprised she knew I was upstairs with the mixer and I got a bit scared when she moved all the buttons, dials and volume levels around. Praise the Lord I saved the settings beforehand with the help of my sound board team. During the rehearsal and service, I felt anxious that I may not have set up the soundboard correctly especially with the equalizer and gain for each person's voice. The insecurity and fear that I have ruin the first service of the year made me panicky, but I realized halfway the service that I am not the only one who is nervous and that I should not focus on messing up the service but more on God's message and lesson for me and for everyone. The message was on the meaning and purpose of a Sabbath, and how ministry is allowed on Sabbath, a day of rest. The reason Pastor Calvin mentioned this point is because of this passage:
"'Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.'"-Matthew 11:28-30 &
"At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, 'Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.' He answered,' Haven't you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread-which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. Or haven't you read in the Law that the priests on Sabbath day in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent? I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. If you had known what these words mean, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.' Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to bring charges against Jesus, they asked him, 'Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?' He said to them, 'If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a person than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.' Then he said to the man, 'Stretch out your hand.' So he stretched it out and it was completely restored, just as sound as the other. But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus." -Matthew 12: 1-13 NIV.
Yes, that is a long passage to copy by hand, but what struck out to me was the emphasis to rest but also do God's ministry without going into technicalities of labeling everything as work. I remembered back in middle school, I would be sad that I treat Sundays as catch-up homework days or cramming-tests days instead of using it to study God's Word or go to church. I would wondered what Christ like people do on Sabbath days, besides going to church, would do. A part of me envisioned people simply sitting in comfy chair reading the Bible or sleeping without worrying about work. Another part of me felt the first part is more realistic than the latter mainly because I felt worrying is a huge problem I have. I have this pessimistic saying back in high school whenever I replied to a friend of mine who tells me to relax:
I will relax when I am dead or I can only relax in heaven because no matter what I do I still have this pestering thought in my head.
After going through a semester more of school, I felt that work cycle is getting tiresome. My calculus friend agree with my statement that we can only relax when we are dead because there would be no work. Even though he is the only person who agree with my statement, I felt sad because we both acknowledge the work cycle and not really the Sabbath because the Sabbath is a time for rest. Rest is not emphasized in the environment we live in especially with the pressing needs to mature and find more work or make our time productive. I find later in a technological world, rest becomes shorter and shorter with pressing messages from work, friends, school, family matters and anything from Youtube subscriptions to news articles. Often I wonder what is rest, and a little middle school me would chime enjoying spending time with God.
I then wondered if I like the Pharisees warp the idea and importance of rest into something that fits my perspective and workaholic lifestyle.
After taking a good look at myself, I do.
Which brings me back to the first passage Matthew 11: 28-30. I vividly remembered my dear high school teacher Mr. Vierk sharing about the importance of rest through Jesus. I was a high school senior burdened with overloading schoolwork and college applications that when I heard Mr. Vierk's message, I literally plummeted my head into a friend's nearby backpack. I felt that my facade of having everything together falling apart when I realized how sick I was of always working and not relying on God for strength. My pride did not want to accept the truth that I was falling apart, but my body could not hold up. Now, I see I have improved a bit. Internally I felt I need to manage time well and reduce time commitment to la-la-la-lu things, but my friends would say that I have a calming presence (and that I'm twelve years old). During dead week, I was studying with my friend in her room and I was doing my organic chem homework that was given out a month ago (yes yes bad idea to do hw so late), and she told me I have a calming presence. Because I heard that remark numerous times before, I asked her what she had meant. She then said that out of her friends, I was not too worried nor competitive as them, that I was chill and not focused on finding internships or getting all A's in school to the point I'll be obsessed. Her words struck out to me because we both went to a competitive high school that festers that harmful kind of thinking of the work cycle that I mentioned earlier. I thought I still bear that kind of thinking, but hearing her words helped me realize I changed, that I was not as worried as I was before. Or maybe I worried about the important matters at hand?
I often do this reality check, especially since I live in California. When the next big earthquake happens, what would be important to me? What the things and people I'm focusing on be important to me at that moment? Would that be worth it compared to God?
I feel like asking these kinds of questions helps me remember my life is not my own but God's. For a person who struggles having a relationship to God, that could be hard to admit because it is hard to give up on certain lifestyles, interests, reputations, and goals we have. None of us like having the idea of losing all the handwork we have, but we should when our work is leading us back into the never ending cycle instead of a time of rest.
So rest like my cat Gracie!
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| Happy new Years everyone! |
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