Buying Time

Well, it's been a few months.
A lot has happened since I've last posted, but why don't we go easy and start it out with a story? Well, here's a story about me and a friend I held close, or thought I held close, temporarily. Last year near this time, February 2011 to be more exact, everything started to change for me. Through developing new friendships at school and at church, God led me to a change of heart on the inside. From feeling boring and ugly to knowing I am empowered and lovely because of Christ. I had been really good at closing myself off to everyone, without them noticing, but I couldn't withdraw from God. He was and always is with me, coaxing me out of oblivion and into an oasis of love and fellowship. Jesus' redemption allowed me to open myself up and share my heart.

This story is mainly about a boy I met at church. He was going through a phenomenal change in Christ, just as I was at the time, but his previous struggles were much different than mine. In short, I think we both loved getting to know another person with a similar newfound passion for Jesus. We became acquaintances, and then quick friends. Soon enough, we were sending each other encouraging little wall posts on facebook and conversing in small talk about life, nothing more. The thing is encouraging wall posts isn't something you always find on facebook, and especially between a guy and a girl who're just friends - or at least that's how I see it. So I found that pretty special. But! I think at some point our appreciation for each others' friendship was standing on different levels. Before this great growth we had through Christ, he was used to relationships, lots of close ones, probably sometimes unhealthy. I was used to a lack of relationships, also an unhealthy situation, but in a opposite way. Due to this, I just saw him as a really friendly encouraging guy, someone I was lucky to have met, and a guy friend you don't just stumble upon easily. To him, I stood out, but I found out at one point that it was a little bit more than just friends.
To summarize the rest of it, he ended up losing the connections and inner strength that he'd found from church and through Christ. It breaks my heart all the time to think how it could've all happened. That someone could be on fire for God at one time and then disappear from it all. It bothers me to think that maybe I could've stopped that from happening, but I think more than that, I know that I'm changed because of getting to meet him at one point. And I'm grateful for that part of my life.

I don't want to put words into his mouth, but I think maybe that in all that fire for Christ, he maybe didn't actually get the point - and I could be totally wrong. But what I think of is this. I remember in our encouraging facebook messages, we'd say little things like "Stay strong" and the sort. But, what does that even mean? Really, it's nice, but I realize now that it's kind of meaningless those words. I think that in my happiness to meet someone like him and befriend him, I didn't even notice that little encouraging messages only mean so much. Our words didn't really have a base or foundation behind them. I think if you talk to someone and hear them out on their struggles, "stay strong" may be an appropriate thing to say with some actual depth. But without knowing much else about another person's life, encouraging words are helpful but may eventually go to deaf ears. Of course, this is the way to start a friendship and lead to a deeper one. The way my mentor puts it is the idea of milk and meat. A baby needs milk to survive, it can't live on meat at first, but later on it's need meat not milk. (Well not if you're vegetarian, but you understand me.) So basically our friendship might've been able to go further and maybe we could've had conversations about scriptural-based things and opinions on our lives, but bottom line growing cannot just be at a standstill. If you're not growing, you're dying. I always remember a speaker at camp saying that.

I guess my big point is that I've made friendships that have grown immensely, some that have come to know Christ and really truly know him for life. Everyone starts out seeming like someone with a lot of potential, like maybe they will be a devoted Christ follower. But some don't end up getting there, instead they drift away. That's what I've found with some friends. But there's a definite trend, those friendships were built upon foundations that once taken away tumbled the friendship, things like spending time together involuntarily (like as an everyday routine thing). On the other end, there are friendships where both people are constantly intentional and reaching out to each other to make an effort, friendships that can be picked back up wherever and whenever they are left off. When I invest time into a friendship, and the other friend reciprocates that, they have been able to come to know God as I do. It's spectacular how that works. And to my last thought, this is the way I see it. By pouring time into someone else's life, you buy them time. No, I don't mean that you can purchase time that they've already lost. But, yes, if you successfully spend your own time on them, you buy more time for them... time in heaven for eternity. And there's no greater gift than that. It's all through Christ and through love and time after time after time. Just like God never fails on us and never leaves.

Center

These past few days have been a stark reminder to me of how important it is to let distractions get in the way of God. It's come for me in the form of my expectations and ambitions disappointing me. This whole past year, ever since the end of January, God has undoubtedly and unceasingly been growing me. But it's because I've finally turned to him for everything - guidance, encouragement, peace, and the greatest love. And it's such a beautiful great thing that when we are faithful to God, we notice that He is faithful to us, forever faithful. But something so amazing can be easily taken for granted. Even though as God grows me and continually reveals new things to my life, it can easily become old. And when that happens, I find that I start trying to rely on myself and my own desires instead of God. I become ambitious, which is by no means a bad thing - you need goals to grow - but what happens is something this quote explains:   

"Never let the things you want make you forget the things you have."

And it finally hit me today that maybe the reason why I'm not as happy as I'm used to being lately is because I'm not trusting that God will give me the things I need, even though He has been doing just that for over half a year. Also, I am a strong believer that selfishness is pretty much the root of all evil and unhappiness. We don't deserve anything good - because we have not been good to the One who created good - and yet He provides it to us in abundant amounts. But as I turn my sights back on Jesus, the One who rescued me, and all of His glory, I'm already feeling so much more at peace with myself and confident about what's to come.

Liberation from Lies

This past week I was at our church summer camp, in which the speaker, Bob, preached to us about the truth of Jesus' love for us. He challenged us to confront the lies that we tell ourselves everyday and to tell these lies (which are of Satan, who is the father of all lies) to go back to Hell where they came from. He stressed that the Truth about Jesus will set us Free.

This message was super crucial for me to hear and internalize, because all of my life I've been telling myself that I'm disliked, unattractive, and useless. These labels are lies straight from the devil and he is using them as footholds to get into my life. Since God lives within me, Satan can't truly have power over me, so instead he uses my own self-doubts to weasel his way into my perspective on life and decision-making. That is the way he drags me down from God. (Luckily, God will always pursue me. When I begin to get far from Him, He will bring me back to His Truth, like by talking through Bob at our summer camp. Hurray!) The problem in the whole situation is that knowing this truth sometimes is not enough to actually believe it. Since I've been listening to Satan's lies for so long (since 2nd grade) it is difficult to remember to fight the lies. Rather than confront the lies head-on, I let them exist within me and still listen to them. Therefore, in order to be liberated, I need to immerse myself daily in God's Truth and when I feel the lies begin to penetrate me, to turn immediately to God. The Truth is that I've been blessed with people who love me, that I'm created in God's image and that I'm filled with a purpose. God's Truth will liberate me by knocking down all of Satan's footholds. Boy, am I glad that the Truth will always conquer the lies!

Beautiful People

(You can click the title to hear a song I chose that goes well with this blog post :)
This post is kind of an in-depth addition to Julia's previous post.
Have you ever realized that when you get to know someone better, their faces become more beautiful to you? There's got to be something about that that has to do with psychology. Maybe it's that when someone becomes more familiar to you, it's more comfortable to you and for that reason you can easily accept the familiarity of their appearance.

But I think more than that everything links back to God's hand in things, that he created us and chose us to have the natural features we have. Just a tiny change to someone's face is extremely noticeable and can completely change how they look, the angle of a nose, the cheekiness of someone's smile, the shape of one's eyebrows, an extra wrinkle in a smile, the width of an eye. There are just so many combinations of features that go into a face, and for that reason each face is absolutely unique, just as God planned it. What's more, God planted a future, a plan, a personality into each one of our hearts. When you combine that special unique face with a particular personality, you get a life that is absolutely one-of-a-kind - unrepeatable and irreplaceable. That's the catch: every life is precious and beautiful.

It is the norm in society to love people who are physically beautiful. But how about we begin loving people in order find the great beauty that lies behind their appearances, the beauty of their souls that make their physical beauty amazing in every single way. Because everlasting beauty is found within, it's a beauty that will never die. Perfect skin and luscious hair will inevitably fade with time, but personality and purpose won't. Society doesn't decide who's the most beautiful, God does and he made each individual beautiful and unrepeatable, precious beyond measure.

Comfort

The last few days have been scary for me as I find anxiety and depression completely taking over and consuming my thoughts and actions. I can't go an hour without trembling. Worst feeling.

Some people claim that true Christians never get depressed or worry, or have major "issues", but that's just sickening and wrong! Sure, the last week I've neglected my exercise and spending time with God, but that doesn't make me any less of a Christian. Or any less LOVED by Him. I think it is in these times that my life has the most purpose instead of (how I feel) the least purpose. In these times of darkness over my mind and body, the Lord is trying to get my attention. When I need Him the most, He reaches out to me the most. He is my comfort. It is in these times that I force myself to see him and he meets me right where I am. God's love and comfort is what helps me keep breathing.

These verses comfort me the most:

Hebrews 13:5-6 God has said, "Never will I leave you. Never will I forsake you." So we say with confidence, "The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid."

Psalm 34:4: "I prayed to the LORD, and he answered me, freeing me from all my fears."

Matthew 6:27: "Can any of you add a single hour to your life by worrying?"

Chazown

So lately I've been wandering through life super unsure of myself and what I'm supposed to be doing. Part of the student leadership program at OCC that I'm involved with is participating in the Chazown experience (click on the title to go to the webpage). For those of you that don't know Chazown is either a Greek or Hebrew(not really sure.....) word for vision and you should definitely check out the website. In this experience, we are finding vision for our lives that will follow along with God's plan and purpose. I had to set some goals in order to get my life into a place where I can really serve God's purpose for me. I have decided to work on my work/school life and my relationships with people, and hopefully by writting this, it'll keep me accountable for myself and anyone who reads this can help keep me acountable. So here tis': 1) work/school: for 30 days, i will do all my homework and come prepared to class every day 2) relationships: for 90 days, i will call at least one person once a week that I do not talk to often So here's the rundown: This isn't something I can do on my own, but it's going to be something I do with the Lord's strength and prayer. Feel free to chat to me about this. :)