When Will Help Come

Recently I haven't being posting articles because I've been plagued by spiritual troubles. All the guilt and all. My faith came back recently yet something bad happened today. Something that could force me give up the cross and walk away. But I've used this incident to come up with something. Make lemonade out of lemons.

I've experience a very turbulent spiritual life. It was as if the moment I accepted the Christ the world became my enemy. Much like Psalms 31: 10-13

My life is consumed by anguish
And my years by groaning;
my strength fails because of my affliction,
and my bones grow weak.
Because of all my enemies,
I am the utter contempt of my neighbors;
I am a dread to my friends—
Those who see me on the street flee from me.
I am forgotten by them as though I were dead;
I have become like broken pottery.
For I hear the slander of many;
There is terror on every side;
They conspire against me
And plot to take my life.

I've never enjoyed my social life outside of church. I've been mocked, laughed at, bullied, slandered and spat on(literally). These douche bags thought because I am a Christian, I was the one they could jerk off continuously. Like a dog.

Well what happened was an all too common scenario. I've had this feeling that I was ready to proudly say that I've lived a godly life without shame. Ready to carry out the cross. I've shedded most of the old addictive sins that weakened me before. As a matter of fact, I became overconfident that nothing could prevent me from falling.

Well, I was insulted really bad. As a usual response I laughed along. But soon I blacked out and did what I wasn't supposed to do. I've kept my mouth and my life clean for almost a month and now it all ended. All my hard work was laid to waste, blasted to rubbles and debris.

This wasn't the first time it happened. However, this was the one most difficult to bear. So I was very angry thinking that I've wasted my life on false hope.

But folks let us consider the facts. We are made to suffer, just like how the Lord was meant to die. Life on earth is not a holiday. It's actually a battlefield full of pain and suffering to test how worthy we are. To test our allegiance to God. It is always easy to say we love God when things are fine but when things start to go the way we don't want them, we just complain saying it's unfair and God doesn't care about me or we could just backslide and enjoy what little joy is left.

What makes it tougher is that in this specific battlefield, we are not allowed to fight back. If we do, we loose whatever the holy spirit gave us. We whack whoever messes with us, we insult when we are insulted. The Christian life is not about how hard we hit, but instead how much we can take. How to get whacked, hit or insulted yet keep moving forward.

Troubles are just like trials to determine the depth of our devotion. If we give up the cross at the first sight of trouble, it shows how shallow or devotion is. The one who endures the most wins. However, there are margin for errors. Perhaps God wants us to use these failures to learn how to prevent them again. That's why problems come in unexpected times and ways, so we can expect the unexpected.

If we fail, just get up and piece back the puzzle.

9th April 2010 - Formal Dress Week

After almost a decade of seeing the jeans/t-shirt format, pastor ordered us to switch to formal dressing which is very bizarre for most of us because most of us only wear them at weddings, grand dinners or funerals. But it was a fun sight to bestow. Nevertheless, three of us failed to adhere to the dressing code.

First, Pastor asked us to take a group photo but there was a catch. The boys were to get a chair, set it up and hold it as the girl sit. Many first timers here because none of us did this before.

Although the session had it's subtle share of light hearted moments, it was one of the most tense subjects touched. Discretion. We are thought to carry ourselves properly and to look out for sexual predators who act overly discreet and dump the girl/boy after they had their fill.

There was also the passage "I will not be mastered by anything". Basically means we must avoid being consumed/addicted/ mastered by anything of the world. Common examples include foul language, pornography, dirty jokes, violent movies(which I admit is kinda cool) or it could be anything. Indeed it is addictive and hard to let go but that doesn't make it okay for us to say it out. Be mastered only by God and you will be guaranteed of maximum discretion.

Pastor also chastised most of us by criticizing our foul language, regardless if it is spoken, typed or written. Which what gives people a bad name. How much of a difference can we make if we are no better than the people around us or if we're worse than them. Hard to swallow right, but it's the only way to do it.

Then there was dinner at McDonalds. Feels extra weird to be walking in all dressed up. Oh Gosh.

26th March!

Today HG'ians do our Cell group bible discussion! We shared about lesson and things applied in our lives in book of James 1-3! It's much different today that Pastor Koshy was not around.. SO, Aunt Dorcas took over the session!

We learned the lesson that , NEVER try to twist the word of God. At times, when we LOVE to do so much. Suddenly somebody forbid us from doing it because it's written in the Bible.. BUT, we denied it. Trying to fight back, just because we can't let it go, we can't take that fact. So, we still doing it and tried to find a "solution" so, we able to do it.

For example , Nowadays gays is very common. Even though God said He hates the sins of being gay but loves the person, but the gay communities still wanted to fight for their right to get marry and go to court and so on.. See?

So, it's better not to be stubborn and try to learn to let go.. :)