Sunday, December 31, 2006

my first communion

This morning I had my first communion at the church. They used grape juice instead of wine.

I didn't plan to follow the crowd, but I did it anyway.

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

quotes

“There have been many men who would be gods, but only one God who would be a man, Jesus Christ.”

“The son of God became a man in order that men might become sons of God.”

---C.S. Lewis

Thursday, December 21, 2006

changes in my life (1)

In our last lifegroup we were asked to think about what God had done to our lives, what were the most signifant changes by following him.

I have much to say, because all has happened within a year.

From what's seen on the surface, the answer is probably nothing. I am still a graduate student. I still have quite a bit struggles in my day-to-day life and my relationships. I still make a lot of mistakes. And still have tons of weakness.

However, I know everything has changed. The whole world is now totally different to me.

First of all, I started a relationship with God. I have been very excited about it. When I had chance to talk about him with my friends, I felt I was in love.

Though it is still hard to say how steady my love is, I know he loves me much and I don't want to risk any chance that might separate me from him for the eternity.

He promised us Heaven. It is not about some place wonderful, or something I can do. This is the place he is preparing for me so that I can stay with him. I will be experiencing the most loving and secure relationship beyong my wildest dreams.

I can not find it here on earth. This is a world of brokenness. Luckily this is not what we are living for. This is only the beginning. We are here to be awaken.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

7

Seven deadly sins:
lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, pride

Seven holy virtues:
chasity, abstinence, liberality, diligence, patience, kindness, humility

The reason why I put those here is that I really need to remind myself of some things I need to work on. I have been way too lazy, low with spirit and envious.

While I was mourning and weeping over the one thing I did, I was letting God down by using it as an excuse for other sins.

quotes from "what's so amazing about grace"

"...the proof of spiritual maturity is not how 'pure' you are but awareness of your impurity. That very awareness opens the door to grace."

Monday, December 11, 2006

a couple of verses

2 Corinthians 1:3-4
"All praise to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the source of every mercy and the God who comforts us. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When others are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us. "

Matthew 6:25-27
"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than them? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

Sunday, December 10, 2006

lost

I cried a lot recently. I cried when I was praying, when I was reading "what's so amazing about grace", when I was watching "Will & Grace" (yeah, that's weird), when I was doing nothing 1 minute ago.

I might have some sort of depression. I get tired easily. I have a hard time falling into sleep. I can't get up and don't want to get up. I have a lot of work to do, but I have been very lazy and inefficient.

The problem is that I don't feel depressed. Instead, it's numbness. I talk to people, I tell jokes, I laugh at their jokes. However, everything is so distant and temporary.

On one hand, I think life should be exciting and full of hope since I am graduating soon and God is probably going to use me for wonderful things. On the other hand, I can't wait to be taken by him. I see the purpose of life, but right now I don't see the purpose of my life.

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

fight the battles

Tonight I went to the community meeting because Brian was going to lead the small group. The theme was the battle-fighting scenes in "the Chronicles of Narnia".

Several people gave very good examples of how they defended Christianity and Jesus against the accusation or misunderstanding or mock from others. However, in our lives, the spiritual battles are happening everyday, on a more silent and less detectable level.

To me, I have to battle with my own weakness and with the lies that the devil tries to put into my head. And my motivation was simply that I don't want to risk the possibility of being separated away from God for eternity.

Like what I just wrote in "looking back" entry, there was this time right after I came back from Memphis when I approached the breaking point. I was miserable, feeling depressed and worthless. The good thing was that I was quite aware of the battle happening inside me and I knew I must hold on to God's words.

Although I know I am much stronger now, this is not the happy ending. I must be prepared, because the enemy will not give up either. The next round attack would be more severe, but the awards would be larger too.

Or sometimes the battle simply means that you need to stand firm, like what Brian is doing. It is not easy to be a Christian in an academic atmosphere. People would look for chance to prove Christians are stupid or pathetic people who have to live on their imaginery God. So admitting being a Christian, living on God's words and accomplishing good work need as much effort as fighting other battles.

By doing all these, Brian has given an example of a real Christian life. He breaks the stereotype of Christians in people's mind. Everyone including the non-christians respects him for that. Consequently, everyone has a new perspective of Christianity and probably more respect for other Christians. He surely won this battle.

love, faith and hope

1 Corinthians 13: "13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."

At last week's D-group, the speaker cited this verse to emphasize the importance of love. However, I started to ask myself this question: what exactly is faith?

Here is the definition of "faith" given by Merriam-Webster's dictionary: "belief and trust in and loyalty to God."

To me, both love and hope seem to be the by-products of faith. Theoretically, if we have true faith in God, we would do what he wants us to do. So at first, we would love him wholeheartedly and love others as ourselves.

Needless to say, faith brings hope of spending eternity with God in heaven.

Then why did Paul put love as the most important matter? My guess is that for non-Christians, love, faith and hope could be treated separatedly. Hence, without having a real faith in Jesus Christ, people can still love each other and make a better world. Also, love is the powerful tool to destroy the devil's plan.

I still stand by my arguement though. Faith is what matters most. Love is the practice of faith. If we have faith, we have love for God and others. Without love, we can't say there is faith.

looking back

I went through a couple of old entries which were written when I was extremely down. I saved them as draft since they were not very encouraging.

But I just posted them all, because now reading them makes me realize that God has done wonderful things to me. He answered my prayers and he has been working on me.

I feel much more secure about relationships I have right now. I have more mature and much stronger faith. I trust God more. My worries are less and last shorter.

I am glad that I decided to hold on. God is awesome.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

feeling tired

It is probably just me. In the past week I found it difficult to get myself motivated to go to church-related activities, although every time I finally went and had a great time.

I do feel thrilled by being invited to some of the parties. I am someone new to the church, and I got accepted right away (well, partially because I am Brian's friend, I guess).

However, I am overwhelmed by things that need to be done. I don't really feel refreshed after those activities, though I had a lot of fun there. Instead, I was usually tired and drained. I just don't have that much energy any more.

**************************************************

One of the girls in our lifegroup gave me a Christmas card last night. She wrote something very nice about me. I felt a lot of love from and for her when I was reading the card. And I actually told her that I love her. She said she loved me too. :)

That was a sweet moment.

Sunday, December 03, 2006

it is a good day

The day didn't start out well. I had a bad night of sleep, lying in my bed for over four hours and awake. The reason why I didn't take advantage of the time to do something was that there was always this slight hint of sleepiness.

Then in the morning I hesitated to get up. Although I did get up in time, I was trying to find reasons not to go to the church. My back was sore badly, and I definitely need more sleep. However, I sensed that something would happen today.

When I drove close to the building, I was already 30 minutes late. The line to get into the parking structure was so long, and the other structure was charging $5. It was as if someone seriously didn't want me to come.

However, I was so curious of what was waiting for me that I paid $5 for the parking. It'd better be Jon Shah giving the talk. This was what I was thinking when I walked into the building.

And it was! My favorite pastor was giving the sermon on one of my favorite topics---heaven! It was a good talk and I enjoyed it very much. The more amazing part is that, when I was waiting for Brian after the talk, I had the chance to introduce myself to Shah and chatted with him a little bit. I have been wanting to do that for months and it finally happened.

I got all excited after that, which gave Brian some good laugh. He said I was like a fan chasing after some celebrity. Well, to me, it surely felt that way.

Notes from the sermon: how differently would we live our lives if we remember that we are just travellers in the world and there is awards waiting for us in our real home?

Also, Shah brought up an interesting point. When people talk about Christians, they think about the word "conservative". But shouldn't it be the opposite? Shouldn't Christians be the people who would take more risks and have more exciteness in life since we know this life is only temporal and we are only travellers in this world?

I agree with him. And I am glad that Christians around me are the people who are trying to live a full life as Jesus promised.

Friday, December 01, 2006

my first D-group

Last night I finally had my first disciple group meeting. I didn't plan on going at first because I had tons of things to do, but as I was sitting in front of my computer, it kept bothering me. So I gave in and went.

It turned out great. Those girls sang some songs. And wow...their voice and skills were like professional. I was totally impressed.

Then one girl told the group about her life by answering the questions by the hostess. After that, we shared a short, sweet story about how grand God's love is.

The main part is the talk given by the woman whose husband is one of NLC pastors. She talked about her struggles, her understanding of love and how we should approach it. It was much better than I expected. Some of her words really touched me.

For example, she mentioned the roles of faith, love and hope. Sometimes we put faith or hope as the most important thing to us while ignore the people whom we can reach and love in the present moment.

Although I am making mistakes on a non-stop basis, I know that I have been praying for the right thing.

Be sesure in God's love, and be strong enough to offer love to others.