My life has been very contrasted to how it used to be about a year ago. After working in a restaurant and finally realizing that God blessed me with so much more than just serving tables, I broke out of the habit of living complacently with what I have and just crave more. Not in the sense of worldly possessions, but because God made me to be more than what I was at the moment. Finally overcoming the loneliness of being single, I realized I would be able to do more now that I am compared to when I was in a draining relationship that was never meant to be. Due to this, I found out that my passion for music extended past the talent to play various instruments and also write music – it came to the point that God also blessed me with the ability to feel music through my body as well.

My days have been filled with what I love to do. From the moment I wake up, I get to enjoy the blessings and hardships of designing; at night, I get to dance and express the love I have for it until the early morning the next day.

So with that in mind, here’s chapter 2.

Chapter 2: You might not finish this chapter.

The title sounds so grim, but there’s a reason for it. Last time, I tried my best to explain that loving God is beyond the mere tedious tasks of the day. But to really soak in the moment and feeling God’s awesomeness in everything that surrounds us. However, it’s not like that in our day-to-day. Day in and day out we worry and think about the things we need to do for the day, the things we haven’t done for the day, and the things we need to prepare for the following day. And Francis Chan puts it quite eloquently, “…it’s easy to to think about today as just another day.” When I read this, I quickly thought of a song Brian and I wrote a while back.

Click to play “Stuck in here” Stuck In Here by Eden’s Design

The pre-chorus goes like this:
What would you say if today’s your last day?
Why do you wait, if tomorrow’s too late?

And often times, our day to day is so worried about the present and about ourselves, we don’t really take the time out of our day to really think of the moment death takes us and we come to the gates of heaven. At this point in the book, our small group had a quick discussion on when we did think about death. *I was somewhat quiet at this point since I wanted to say what I wanted to say near the end of the chapter (which I will also do). But a lot of the responses were about seeing death when it came to someone close to them or there were some discussions about murder trials and seeing gruesome deaths. These were valid view points and I’m not really in here to bash them, but those were just some of the things that were brought up. One of these instances applied to me when one of my friends passed away a while back (but this is not how I feel about death at the current time). I had only recently gotten to know her and within one evening, she was gone. At this point in my life, I had never been to a funeral nor hear of news of someone close who had passed away from me. So it was a real shocker. So for a few months, I lived out a very cautious life and treaded softly to make sure that I wouldn’t do anything stupid. And of course, I went back to my old routines.

The next quick section was about Justified stress. Is there really such a thing? Anytime I see the word justified, I think of it as a way of “trying” to make a deal with God who’s truth is absolute. So in the sense, why are we trying to justify anything? I digress though, Francis Chan mentions that the world usually consists of two people – natural worriers and naturally joyful people. Throughout all my life, I would honestly say I would fall under the natural joyful category so this section was very hard for me to dissect and discuss with my small group members of whom the majority were natural worriers. Natural worriers tend to be “consumed by their problems and feel that their circumstances are more important than God’s command to always rejoice. In other words, [they] have the ‘right’ to disobey God because of the magnitude of [their] responsibilities.”

Francis Chan went ahead and split up that category into two terms that we can all understand – worry and stress.

• worry – implies that we don’t quite trust God is big enough, powerful enough, or loving enough to take care of what’s happening in our lives.
• stress – says that the things we are involved in are important enough to merit our impatience, our lack of grace toward others, or our tight grip of control

This part was a bit ironic cause we started having a pretty huge debate which sort of got out of hand if I last remembered. We started to discuss the line before we cross to worry and eventually stress about things and the irony of it was that my personality was pounced on by several members of the small group because of my “laid back” attitude towards things (which also have its downfall which I have overcome). But I could honestly say that I don’t really worry and stress but I prepare since God doesn’t tell us to not prepare. If He gives us something in our hands, do we let Him follow through with everything?
“4 Lazy hands make a man poor, but diligent hands bring wealth.
5 He who gathers crops in summer is a wise son, but he who sleeps during harvest is a disgraceful son.” – Proverbs 10:4-5.
And then the discussion between preparing and worry/stress started to tangent from the real topic at hand which is about trusting God with everything. If we prepare the best we could, then it’s up to God. There’s no sense to truly worry about things we can’t control, and no sense in being stressed about the things that can cause irritation/anger. Because it all boils down to the same point again is that by worrying and stressing, we start thinking that our issues are greater than God,

Which brings to the next point: Thank God We Are Weak

Life is fragile. Accidents happen. Babies have a self destruct button on the back of their heads. We drive at 65+ mph in a car. Essentially it comes to full circle and really remembering that we are not in control. It’s a hard concept to grasp sometimes because of all the hard work we can put into a project our aspect of our life, and sometimes it can just be taken away.

And really, Are We Ready? to come before the gates of heaven and have God ask us what we’ve done with our lives to really glorify Him? (There are a few points I kinda skipped, but you’ll understand where I drew this line to get here)

———

Pages 46 – 48 are two stories about a man who spoke at a friend’s funeral, showed the audience his love for Christ and stated that death can come at any time, are you ready? He sat down and passed away at that very moment bringing Christ’s message to everybody who was there. The 2nd story was about a girl who devoted her life to following Christ and bringing new believers every single day. Whether it was through poetry, speeches, you name it. She passed away when she was 15 and at her funeral had over 1500 attendees because of the way she lived her life.

I was pretty silent during small group because I had really thought a lot about this moment for a few years now. I had felt that what I was doing wasn’t significant enough. Who had I brought to Christ since I became a believer? Maybe one person? I did some of the work but I can’t take the credit. I had read “The Purpose Drive Life” but I stopped when I got to the part of the book about evangelizing. I had always felt that it wasn’t for me. Even when I started living out a Christian life, I was always afraid to speak to people about Christ and His love for others. Even now, I’m still uneasy about it. So the ideas of going door to door with the youth group I was with at the time scared me away and I never got back to it. There have been moments like serving others (not really a gift of mine, but no excuse…I would rather serve those close to me) but I was felt very selfish and didn’t want to do those either. Several years passed and I’d like to think I’ve matured a bit. But I think God always came back to me and essentially would bring up the idea of evangelizing or doing ministry work. I had been part of the worship team for a brief moment, but I didn’t feel that was really my calling, despite the fact I could play and write if need be. My “pride” as a pianist essentially halted my presence in the worship team and I backed out because I wasn’t playing for God, I was only playing cause my friend wanted me to play for the team and I would end up judging myself as I played. The glory for Christ was not there.

Not until recently when I discovered a snuffed passion for dance is where I felt that I don’t have to say anything to worship. God moves in me and I move to how He moves me. There are techniques and what nots, but dance isn’t always about that – it’s about expression. I did have a slight regret in not joining the dance ministry back when I was in philly to get some experience but there’s no sense in me to dwell on it. Learn from it and move on. With the idea of body worship, which would be more than just singing or playing, we move. God didn’t just create us just to sing, or to strum, or to bang on drums, or to play the piano, but also to move. Movement is so important and we do it everyday. And even before reading this chapter, I was already convicted to do something about it. But after reading about the moment when life could simply be wasted and not be used for the glory of God, my conviction for this has become stronger…

the only difficult part is how to implement this. And with that, I place in God’s hands. I will continue to strengthen my talent and have Him use me.

But since i’ve decided to take this week as kind of a physical break to recover from exhaustion and resetting my immune system, time has definitely slowed down a lot. My free time used to be filled up with the constant need to be active in video gaming or just lazing around and not really accomplishing anything; with the current change/focus in my life, i feel like those time wasting things weren’t fulfilling at any moment. I’ve decided on those before, but it’s definitely become more clear now (i’m not gonna lie but there will still be times when i won’t want to do anything and people will be able to understand that probably in my next post).

But now to re-align this post to really the purpose of writing again. sometime around the beginning of april, the young adult small group began reading the book “Crazy Love” for the biweekly bible study reading. A little background on the book, it’s written by Francis Chan who had become sick of the average Christian life and had wanted something more. at first, i saw this more as another type of radical living which would usually be imposed on college students by pastors to want them to do something more with their life (this is by no means a way of me bashing, merely just an observation i have noticed throughout different colleges and groups i’ve been to). But as we read more into this book, i was able to see the merits of his points and his reasonings. It’s not so much about bringing new changes to other people’s lives in various different ways, but first changing yourself and being crazy in love with God.

ch.1 – stop praying.

I’ve always felt that prayer shouldn’t be restricted to just be the only time to talk to God and that your everyday life should pretty much have Him immersed within it so that He would be with you in everything you would do throughout the day. However, the focus of the first chapter went even deeper than what i have previously thought.

Take some time before going into prayer or just anything you do and just be in awe of what God has created around you. Understand the awespiring power He has to create such different imaginative and creative things that exist around us. Not just enjoying the moment of a beautiful sunrise or even the soothing emotion the beach can bring to you, but really breathe in the amazing things He’s created. From even the simplest molecule known to man to even the vastness of the complexity of space.

Having being raised with a logistical and scientific background, i had never even took the time to just absorb the complexity of … science (i mean of course i understood how … difficult it could be at times, but i mean really understand that even God had created these things for us to study) or even be blessed with the different talents He has given me, especially in art.

Francis Chan does mention that there’s this thing that exists called spiritual amnesia and that “no matter how many fascinating details we learn about God’s creation, no matter how many pictures we see of His galaxies, and no matter how many sunsets we watch, we still forget.” That there will definitely be some moments when we wake up and just don’t want to worship and enjoy God’s presence – the real challenge is actually living it out and loving God to be natural. So he has some sections for reminders.

God is Holy:
Try to describe God and there will be a bajillion different types of explanations of who He is. “His perfect holiness, by definition, assures us that our words can’t contain Him. Isn’t it a comfort to worship a God we cannot exaggerate?”

God is Eternal:
What does it mean to be eternal? We each have a story with a beginning, middle and end. But with God, He exists out of time and has always been there before there was an Earth or even a universe.
“But you, Oh Lord, sit enthroned forever; your renown endures through all generations… But you remain the same, and your years will never end” Ps. 102:12-27.
How awesome is it that throughout the years, He is never changing and while we will meet our end eventually that His never does.

God is All-Knowing:
Francis Chan starts this section off with something that appealed to me, that “Each of us, to some degree, fool our friends and family about who we really are.” Sometimes we have the little white lies here and there and obviously there’s also withholding truth to cover up embarrassments or feelings or animosity between each other. But nothing is hidden from God. He knows us even before we were born. Our feelings. Conflicts. Stories.
“Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.” Hebrews 4:13. It’s great that even though He created so many awespiring things in existence, He still takes the time to know even the littlest details about us.

God is All-Powerful:
“For by Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by Him and for Him.” Col. 1:16.
“Our God is in heaven; He does whatever pleases him.” Psalm 115:3.
There will be many times in our lives where we always question. Why am i short? Why can’t i have hair like that guy? Why are some people graduating with jobs and the majority suffering from unemployment? As bad as this may sound, Francis Chan writes this well, “Because He’s God. He has more of a right to ask us why _____. As much as we want God to explain Himself to us, His creation, we are in no place to demand that He give an account to us.”
“All the people of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as He pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back His hand or say to him: ‘What have you done?’” Daniel 4:35.
“Can you worship a God who isn’t obligated to explain His actions to you? Could it be arrogance that makes you think God owes you an explanation?” – This line of thinking has always lead me into thinking about entitlement and that there are some people who are more deserving of explanations than others or even deserving of rewards. This leads into the next section.

God is fair and just:
Sometimes it’s really hard to wrap my head around the idea of justice. There are definitely times when someone has wronged me in such an atrocious way and that their life is so much brighter than mine (even now, there are still some people who i think of where i don’t feel like they deserve what they have right now). But i have to step back and really see this in God’s eyes and that we can’t really compare what is fair with our own sense of balancing scales. If this happened, then nothing in the world would have a standard and no “true” justice would be served. With God, He sees all sins as equal and deserving of punishment. If we look back at all the applications, we are in no place to question His sense of punishment when we all sin equally in nature.

In the final section of the challenge, Francis Chan pulls from Isaiah 6 and Revelation 4 to describe the throne of God.

1 It was in the year King Uzziah died[a] that I saw the Lord. He was sitting on a lofty throne, and the train of his robe filled the Temple. 2 Attending him were mighty seraphim, each having six wings. With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. 3 They were calling out to each other,

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Heaven’s Armies!
The whole earth is filled with his glory!”

4 Their voices shook the Temple to its foundations, and the entire building was filled with smoke.

5 Then I said, “It’s all over! I am doomed, for I am a sinful man. I have filthy lips, and I live among a people with filthy lips. Yet I have seen the King, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.”

6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal he had taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. 7 He touched my lips with it and said, “See, this coal has touched your lips. Now your guilt is removed, and your sins are forgiven.”

8 Then I heard the Lord asking, “Whom should I send as a messenger to this people? Who will go for us?”

I said, “Here I am. Send me.”

9 And he said, “Yes, go, and say to this people,

‘Listen carefully, but do not understand.
Watch closely, but learn nothing.’
10 Harden the hearts of these people.
Plug their ears and shut their eyes.
That way, they will not see with their eyes,
nor hear with their ears,
nor understand with their hearts
and turn to me for healing.”[b]

11 Then I said, “Lord, how long will this go on?”

And he replied,

“Until their towns are empty,
their houses are deserted,
and the whole country is a wasteland;
12 until the Lord has sent everyone away,
and the entire land of Israel lies deserted.
13 If even a tenth—a remnant—survive,
it will be invaded again and burned.
But as a terebinth or oak tree leaves a stump when it is cut down,
so Israel’s stump will be a holy seed.”
—-

1 Then as I looked, I saw a door standing open in heaven, and the same voice I had heard before spoke to me like a trumpet blast. The voice said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must happen after this.” 2 And instantly I was in the Spirit,[a] and I saw a throne in heaven and someone sitting on it. 3 The one sitting on the throne was as brilliant as gemstones—like jasper and carnelian. And the glow of an emerald circled his throne like a rainbow. 4 Twenty-four thrones surrounded him, and twenty-four elders sat on them. They were all clothed in white and had gold crowns on their heads. 5 From the throne came flashes of lightning and the rumble of thunder. And in front of the throne were seven torches with burning flames. This is the sevenfold Spirit[b] of God. 6 In front of the throne was a shiny sea of glass, sparkling like crystal.

In the center and around the throne were four living beings, each covered with eyes, front and back. 7 The first of these living beings was like a lion; the second was like an ox; the third had a human face; and the fourth was like an eagle in flight. 8 Each of these living beings had six wings, and their wings were covered all over with eyes, inside and out. Day after day and night after night they keep on saying,

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty—
the one who always was, who is, and who is still to come.”

9 Whenever the living beings give glory and honor and thanks to the one sitting on the throne (the one who lives forever and ever), 10 the twenty-four elders fall down and worship the one sitting on the throne (the one who lives forever and ever). And they lay their crowns before the throne and say,

11 “You are worthy, O Lord our God,
to receive glory and honor and power.
For you created all things,
and they exist because you created what you pleased.”

—-

Each author has a different way of describing the throne of God. How can we not just not imagine how glorious God is with these in mind? I would never have pictured this ever in a million years and i’m a creative type too!?

So next time we sit down to pray, really just sit in silence and just listen to Him speak to us. Feel His glory surround us and just absorb how great creation really is. It’s so great to just love God for this even when I wake up and I just don’t really want to do anything. But i’m reminded every day for all that He’s done and that what i do isn’t for me, but for Him.

But I woke up with those gut feelings in my chest. The wrenching, twisting, flinching pain that happens when your heart skips a beat from past ghosts.

Chokes me, strangles me, suffocates me.

*You know at first, I turned and I couldn’t really focus. I guess the shock of it all still hurts a bit. But after awhile, and just talking it through, it’s fine to a point where i’m kind of just apathetic to the whole thing.

Quick.
Painful.
Hard.

I don’t quite understand this phenomenon too well either.

But it hits me pretty quick. And I fell for someone and the situation couldn’t be any more complicated.

And now the only thing I can do is move on right now before I get stuck on the hook.

And I can’t help but cry for God’s guidance when He places these situations in my life. I don’t quite know how to dig out and infuriated with the whole thing.

And then i’m stuck listening to ‘somebody’s me’ – Enrique Iglesias

the catch.

the one with everything to offer.

cook, create, clean.

idea generator.

romance.

and still, be dead in the water.

(idiot)

A lot of people love the sun. the clear blue skies with floating imaginary babies and animals drifting along like its very own movie scene.

but i love the rain. it’s a huge contrast from the bright blue days where the sun shines on everything and gives the illusion that everything is beautiful. and there are of course a lot of people that hate the rain.

it’s dirty, drudgingly dark, and depressing.

i beg to differ. i find the rain to be very beautiful.

with of course the exception of the lightning that splits the skies and the earth shattering thunder (of which i don’t mind either because it’s something i love).

i find that the rainfall has it’s great moments too. no, not the fact that it brings out terrible drivers, but the fact that i find that i can stare outside and i can enjoy the serenity and the peace that comes from a rainfall. as the raindrops pitter patter on the rooftops, it gives my heart beat a smooth rhythm to follow. it’s like nature has its own drum beat. smooth.

and of course, dancing in the rain. there’s just something that comes from it. yeah it’s cold from when the rain absorbs all our body heat, but the warmth of another person holding you while you flow to the rain is so much better.

but my rainfall, isn’t depressing and it’s not gloomy. it’s a perspective. that even in such dull colors you can still find beauty in it.

I think that’s the mentality a lot of people have nowadays. And because of it, the world we live in has become jaded and cut-throat that it affects every aspect of my life (and possibly others)

- dating // relationships //
- gaming // competition // friendships
- work // job markets //

but that’s not really the point of this post.

I’ve always fancied superheroes or something. I mean, who hasn’t wished for super powers! However, I’m more focused on the noble characteristics and personalities that they share. Their sense of Justice. Why they fight the good fight.

Maybe you were sent to earth with super powers. And with that said you have the inner feeling that you have save everybody because they can’t help themselves. Or due to some self-defeating past event, you realized that the overabuse of your powers cost someone their life. Or possibly a self-destructive moment in time caused you the inability to move on and only thus creating a new fear that strikes the heart of villians.

——-

this post is about 2 months too late when it comes to posting. i had originally intended on it being more of a wanting to save everybody kinda thing.

however, i feel like more to the relatability to all classes of superheros. powers/no powers.

what’s the one thing that ties all heroes together?

and it struck me earlier last night when i was recollecting my past and how i can never get over anything except pick up, move on, and just keep carrying that by myself.

it’s having the weight of the world on your shoulders because your past is what makes you.

defines you.

makes you the person who you fight for.

and as of today, what happens when a superhero is defeated. destroyed. dissolved?

they come back.

stronger.

For example, the immediate need for a brand new website is definitely on the priority list.

A major overhaul is required.
A new brand image.
The new look that’s fresh and exciting.

I finally figured it out. How I’m gonna finally brand myself. Oh and it’s gonna be good. But I’m keeping this in the downlow and close to home. It’s actually pretty brilliant.

But I hit a snag.

I’m the only one I know who knows how to do interactive work and I’m not even that good. I’ve been asking around and trying to see if anybody else knows how to do the stuff I want to achieve.

So instead of going out to do some more research and what not, I decided to re-update my old website. So I can somewhat transition it into the newer one.

Though, I might have to make the new one in HTML/CSS coding as a beta while I achieve the full status of interactivity it.

But yeah, I’m definitely in the mood where I’m putting off the big stuff for rather small little details.

Come on, where’s the bigger picture!

And then that crystallizing moment sets in and it hits you.

I won’t be able to achieve this alone.

But that’s all I have.

“The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ.”
- 1 Corinthians 12:12

I’ve gotta be honest. Today, I woke up feeling ok. Actually, it’s more like pretty awesome, with a pinch of invincibility and the waking feeling of motivation. So I took all those, mixed it together and proceeded to do all my busy work set for the day.

I woke up, finished the daily heroic (yeah…WoW) in under 15 min, emailed HR of my “hopeful” job potential and drove out to start the real day with a haircut. I’m not gonna lie, but I just felt pretty awesome. A great day. But to be truthful, my “great days” are short lived.

During the brief moment my hair stylist left me to help an elderly lady, I checked my email. The day was only 2 hours young and my invincibility met a wall of vulnerability. My spirit sinks and bad news after more bad news just becomes a daily constant thing that it’s more draining than surprising. It’s like the exaggerated ads where people just throw whatever they have in their hand or whatever they were doing and just scream “I give up.” And essentially, that’s exactly what my mind did right then and there.

The rest of the day lost its luster and I spent most of it pretty mindless. Can you really blame me? My spirit is destroyed, the sight of others doing so much more with their lives is crushing, and of course, the one person who I truly despise has everything spoon fed to her.

And before this slowly turns into a “pity” rant, I’ll re-focus back to the devotional.

I find it difficult these days to pray for God’s kingdom when my life is just randomly pieced together with no coherent plan. Call me selfish, cold-blooded or callous, but the well-being of my fellow Christians aren’t very high on my list right now.

And that’s what I felt when I was reading my devotional today. And I mean, I should take the effort into doing so, but it’s really saddening when people in my life don’t really take the time to do the same for me either.

Yeah, some are getting married or just busy.

9th wheel is awesome.

And as each day passes by, it becomes more of a battle of loneliness than anything.