i used to think i was independent.
and then..i don't know, once i started dating, i wasn't independant. i guess, in a way, that is the point of dating. once you marry, you're no longer two but one.
i guess, in a sense, i lost myself. couldn't imagine myself without Sam. was scared to do small or big things alone. was scared to be alone.
tonight, as students were singing around me, as i contemplated some options, i felt such peace in my heart that it moved me to tears (small tears, mind you!). perhaps it was God reminding me that no matter what happens, no matter what the outcome of said options, i will never be alone. that i wasn't alone before i started dating Sam, and no matter what happens with Sam in the near or distant future, i won't be alone.
vendredi, novembre 06, 2009
mercredi, octobre 21, 2009
balance.
I've been thinking a lot lately about how i have the tendency to section off the things i'm supposed to do into groups. Prayer is one group. Evangelism is another group. Discipleship and fellowship are another group. And because i section them off in my mind, as though they are separate entities, i live as though they are separate.
That's why, when i'm burned out or tired or grumpy, evangelism is the first thing to go. Then discipleship. i'll keep on praying and trying to focus on my personal walk with God, but inevitably, i'll get more and more frustrated towards many areas of my life, including evangelism and discipleship.
Maybe this is because these things weren't meant to be separate entities. Why do we pray? It's not just for our own personal revival. It's so that God's kingdom may come. We pray so that we can do evangelism. And when we do evangelism, and see the state of the world, we can't help but pray more. Tautological, isn't it? Why do we make disciples? To see all nations come to know God. So discipleship and evangelism are also intricately woven. You can't have disciples if you don't do evangelism. And when we're committed to both discipleship and evangelism, it follows that prayer is so essential, because the more you do both, the more you realize how much you can't succeed at both.
I'm not even sure if i'm making sense or not, but here's my point. When there's an imbalance in one of these three areas, it doesn't just affect our life in that one particular area, but in all three areas.
When we let evangelism drop to the wayside, our prayers become weak and self-centered. They start to lack fervency, because there is little purpose to be fervent and desperate for. Our eyes turn to ourselves and our needs, instead of God and God's heart for the lost. When we let discipleship drop, our evangelistic efforts and fruit from those efforts are siphoned into..nowhere. When we let prayer drop, we miss out on seeing the world as God sees the world, but also seeing God's purpose and hand in our efforts. Evangelism and discipleship just become commands that we need to follow out of obedience, and this soon turns into resentment towards others, and towards God.
Again, despite my inability to clearly communicate what i am thinking, i think this is why many students go through burnout or a bitterness towards the company in their last year. (As a caveat, i am sure our organization needs to be constantly tweaking our methodology so that we can be helping students fight against burnout and bitterness and preventing this from happening. So, in saying this, i am not neglecting the organization's fault in being conducive towards this bitterness).
But i think that a lot of our student leaders go through burnout and bitterness because one of these three areas, or more are imbalanced. As an example, i see a lot of student leaders (including myself, when i was a student), doing a lot of evangelism and discipleship, but little prayer. Soon, as a result, evangelism and discipleship become huge chores that they have to do, instead of stemming from a supple and humble heart that comes only through the dependency of prayer. Come fourth year, students are burned out and stressed out, and that only yields bitterness. Without the humility and softening of hearts that genuine prayer brings, there is little way to taper this bitterness.
On the flip side, what often happens then, is that students drop everything they have been given ownership over, and decide that they need to just focus on themselves and prayer. Prayer skyrockets, and slowly a healing process begins. But without evangelism and discipleship in the picture, their prayers become self-centered and focused on their own personal growth. What is often missed, however, is that in order for personal growth to happen, taking steps of faith in evangelism and discipleship needs to happen. The prayers just lead to more and more self-pity and "woe-is-me" mentality.
This was me, in my last year of university. Because i had the view that these three things were separate and distinct areas, instead of all being integral in my life (think venn diagram), i allowed myself to rob myself of what could have been a great last year of university.
And it's not just a university thing either. i see the cycle of imbalance in my own life. hmm balance. it's a hard thing...
I've been thinking a lot lately about how i have the tendency to section off the things i'm supposed to do into groups. Prayer is one group. Evangelism is another group. Discipleship and fellowship are another group. And because i section them off in my mind, as though they are separate entities, i live as though they are separate.
That's why, when i'm burned out or tired or grumpy, evangelism is the first thing to go. Then discipleship. i'll keep on praying and trying to focus on my personal walk with God, but inevitably, i'll get more and more frustrated towards many areas of my life, including evangelism and discipleship.
Maybe this is because these things weren't meant to be separate entities. Why do we pray? It's not just for our own personal revival. It's so that God's kingdom may come. We pray so that we can do evangelism. And when we do evangelism, and see the state of the world, we can't help but pray more. Tautological, isn't it? Why do we make disciples? To see all nations come to know God. So discipleship and evangelism are also intricately woven. You can't have disciples if you don't do evangelism. And when we're committed to both discipleship and evangelism, it follows that prayer is so essential, because the more you do both, the more you realize how much you can't succeed at both.
I'm not even sure if i'm making sense or not, but here's my point. When there's an imbalance in one of these three areas, it doesn't just affect our life in that one particular area, but in all three areas.
When we let evangelism drop to the wayside, our prayers become weak and self-centered. They start to lack fervency, because there is little purpose to be fervent and desperate for. Our eyes turn to ourselves and our needs, instead of God and God's heart for the lost. When we let discipleship drop, our evangelistic efforts and fruit from those efforts are siphoned into..nowhere. When we let prayer drop, we miss out on seeing the world as God sees the world, but also seeing God's purpose and hand in our efforts. Evangelism and discipleship just become commands that we need to follow out of obedience, and this soon turns into resentment towards others, and towards God.
Again, despite my inability to clearly communicate what i am thinking, i think this is why many students go through burnout or a bitterness towards the company in their last year. (As a caveat, i am sure our organization needs to be constantly tweaking our methodology so that we can be helping students fight against burnout and bitterness and preventing this from happening. So, in saying this, i am not neglecting the organization's fault in being conducive towards this bitterness).
But i think that a lot of our student leaders go through burnout and bitterness because one of these three areas, or more are imbalanced. As an example, i see a lot of student leaders (including myself, when i was a student), doing a lot of evangelism and discipleship, but little prayer. Soon, as a result, evangelism and discipleship become huge chores that they have to do, instead of stemming from a supple and humble heart that comes only through the dependency of prayer. Come fourth year, students are burned out and stressed out, and that only yields bitterness. Without the humility and softening of hearts that genuine prayer brings, there is little way to taper this bitterness.
On the flip side, what often happens then, is that students drop everything they have been given ownership over, and decide that they need to just focus on themselves and prayer. Prayer skyrockets, and slowly a healing process begins. But without evangelism and discipleship in the picture, their prayers become self-centered and focused on their own personal growth. What is often missed, however, is that in order for personal growth to happen, taking steps of faith in evangelism and discipleship needs to happen. The prayers just lead to more and more self-pity and "woe-is-me" mentality.
This was me, in my last year of university. Because i had the view that these three things were separate and distinct areas, instead of all being integral in my life (think venn diagram), i allowed myself to rob myself of what could have been a great last year of university.
And it's not just a university thing either. i see the cycle of imbalance in my own life. hmm balance. it's a hard thing...
dimanche, octobre 18, 2009
low on the go!
will literally be 'low on the go' come March 1st when i take blueberry bonita (?) out for her inaugural spin :)
things i like:
- road trip with SF and JW
- the sweet deal i got on my brand new vespa! (~ $2000 less than the MRSP)
- the really super nice dude we bought the vespa from!
- my new, baby blue, 2009 Vespa LX 50
- SF who found me said Vespa
- sour apple and watermelon starburst
- disney music
- JL and SF who helped unload the vespa.
things i do not like:
- Enterprise, who screwed up our rental and sent us out all the way to Repentigny.
- Trucks. i hope to NEVER ever have to own a truck. They are hard to park, they're ugly and they are monstrous. And the gas mileage is atrocious.
will literally be 'low on the go' come March 1st when i take blueberry bonita (?) out for her inaugural spin :)
things i like:
- road trip with SF and JW
- the sweet deal i got on my brand new vespa! (~ $2000 less than the MRSP)
- the really super nice dude we bought the vespa from!
- my new, baby blue, 2009 Vespa LX 50
- SF who found me said Vespa
- sour apple and watermelon starburst
- disney music
- JL and SF who helped unload the vespa.
things i do not like:
- Enterprise, who screwed up our rental and sent us out all the way to Repentigny.
- Trucks. i hope to NEVER ever have to own a truck. They are hard to park, they're ugly and they are monstrous. And the gas mileage is atrocious.
mardi, septembre 29, 2009
on a life of radical faith.
"When I fed them, they were satisfied; when they were satisfied they became proud; then they forgot me." Hosea 13:6.
Been thinking a lot about how even as Christians, we tend to shy away from living lives of radical faith. How I have been setting my eyes on the small things and feeling satisfied by them. You can probably even tell by how small and trivial my posts are. hmm... i've been reading a book that's been giving me lots of food for thought.
"When I fed them, they were satisfied; when they were satisfied they became proud; then they forgot me." Hosea 13:6.
Been thinking a lot about how even as Christians, we tend to shy away from living lives of radical faith. How I have been setting my eyes on the small things and feeling satisfied by them. You can probably even tell by how small and trivial my posts are. hmm... i've been reading a book that's been giving me lots of food for thought.
"What scares me most are the people who are lukewarm and just don't care. I think that if I did a poll of the readers of this book, many of you would say, 'Yeah, I am definitely lukewarm at times, but i'm not really at a place to give more to God.' Many of us believe we have as much of God as we want right now, a reasonable portion of God among all the other things in our lives. Most of our thoughts are centered on the money we want to make, the school we want to attend, the body we aspire to have, the spouse we want to marry, the kind of person we want to become... But the fact is that nothing should concern us more than our relationship with God; it's about eternity and nothing compares with that. God is not someone who can be tacked on to our lives....
When we put it plainly like this--as a direct choice between God and our stuff--most of us hope we would choose God. But we need to realize that how we spend our time, what our money goes toward, and where we will invest our energy is equivalent to choosing or rejecting Him....
True faith means holding nothing back; it bets everything on the hope of eternity.
I know that this whole swimming-upstream, pursuing-Christ, taking-up-your-cross, counting-the-cost thing isn't easy. It's so hard, in fact, that Jesus said the road is narrow and few will actually find it... and fewer still among those who are rich. Like the parable of the sower, don't assume you are the good soil; don't assume you are one of the few on the narrow way."
~ Francis Chan, Crazy Love, p. 96-98
When we put it plainly like this--as a direct choice between God and our stuff--most of us hope we would choose God. But we need to realize that how we spend our time, what our money goes toward, and where we will invest our energy is equivalent to choosing or rejecting Him....
True faith means holding nothing back; it bets everything on the hope of eternity.
I know that this whole swimming-upstream, pursuing-Christ, taking-up-your-cross, counting-the-cost thing isn't easy. It's so hard, in fact, that Jesus said the road is narrow and few will actually find it... and fewer still among those who are rich. Like the parable of the sower, don't assume you are the good soil; don't assume you are one of the few on the narrow way."
~ Francis Chan, Crazy Love, p. 96-98
mardi, septembre 15, 2009
vespa vespa.
sam searched for said vespa.
he found one at a great price.
i put in a bid.
here's to hoping!! should seal the deal in 2 weeks.
sam searched for said vespa.
he found one at a great price.
i put in a bid.
here's to hoping!! should seal the deal in 2 weeks.
jeudi, septembre 10, 2009
mercredi, septembre 09, 2009
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