Three steps forward, zero steps back. For once.
Helping lead worship on Friday night was both an extremely gratifying experience and really fun. One of my other apartmentmates (TJ) was also leading worship (though at AACF, not CCF) this past Friday, and we both thought it was pretty much awesome.
Just being in the front and seeing everyone — even the freshmen, many of whom had just met the people around them moments before — worshiping and praising God together in unity, despite differences or friendships or class was amazing. It’s those types of moments that I can feel God calling me to pay attention so that He can show me that the singing or the instrumentals aren’t everything in worship; the selflessness and waterfall of emotions of the people worshiping with each other seem to bring glory to God, and are worship within themselves.
I can’t help but relentlessly imagine what amazing plan God has in store for me as His servant in the years to come.
Speaking of worship and such, here’s a great song that TJ likes a lot and now has rubbed off on me:
“Your love heals every disease
Your love fulfills my every need
Your love is everything to me
Your love is everything
I will not forget
I won’t forget your promises
I will not forget
I won’t forget your love.”
The song’s chorus and bridge are so elegantly simple, yet convey the most important reason behind why we are Christians: the love from God in the form of the Christ. The response is equally important: that we should never forget the gospel and why it is so important to us.
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Now, on the note of taking steps back, I was reading this article:
How to Deal with the Guilt of Sexual Failure for the Glory of Christ and His Global Cause
This portion particularly stuck out to me:
“The tragedy is that Satan uses the guilt of these failures to strip you of every radical dream you ever had, or might have, and in its place give you a happy, safe, secure, American life of superficial pleasures until you die in your lakeside rocking chair, wrinkled and useless, leaving a big fat inheritance to your middle-aged children to confirm them in their worldliness. That’s the main tragedy. “
If you’ve ever looked me in the eye at any time in my life and have some degree of discernment (or read any previous emo blog posts), you could probably tell that at any point in my life I’m never feeling particularly “happy” or “joyous”, despite whatever celebratory event has happened to me. This kicked in the day right after serving on the worship team, and I soon fell into an extremely depressed state. Everything felt hopeless — no, things still feel a little helpless — and I felt like no matter where I went in my spiritual life, I’m just heading towards one giant fall into betrayal and despair.
But I guess according to Piper, this is exactly what Satan wants me to feel: like I’m worth less than nothing because of who I am and what I’ve done, and that there’s no point in trying to “walk the path” when most people around me I know are just…blind sheep given pitchforks. And that’s the voice I had been listening to for the past several months, the same voice — the same weapon — that has kept me in a depressed and agonized state all this time.
Now, at the very least, I know that that’s the wrong way to think, that because of my failures I should feel perpetually guilty and therefore am unable to glorify God. But that’s not true at all. I’ll never let Satan hold me back from glorifying God because of my own shame anymore. After all, what the heck is the point of Jesus dying and God’s love if I don’t manage to glorify Him with my life — the life that God loves and has a plan for?
Though, if I do somehow forget this from time to time, I would like those around me to encourage me and remind me of this amazing love.
I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.
- Phil. 1:20
Your love is everything to me
Your love is everything
I will not forget
I wont forget your love.
First Week Update
Blog post mood for today: literal.
Friday
I moved in today. Will and Willy were there to greet me, but Cole and TJ were at Journey Christian training. We made meatballs with carrots and rice. After dinner, we went to go meet with Willy’s freshman friend and invited him to CCF. We met up with Henway and Steph later and met some more freshmen.
Saturday
I helped with CCF’s booth at the club fair today. Will and I walked around and met the freshmen who were walking around and told them to go to the post-fair barbecue we were having. Most of them couldn’t make it though.
Sunday
Today I went back to Journey for the first time in four months. It was pretty happy, reuniting with everyone and meeting all the newer freshmen who were checking out churches. For dinner we had Henway and Steph come over and show us how to make some stuff (Henway chicken, tomato beef, cabbage and eggs), and played Bang after.
Monday
Nervous about school starting. We went to Costco with Pastor Young-Su in the afternoon, and bought a ton of stuff. Afterwards, I went to the SerT leadership orientation for CCF. Unfortunately, I was the only sophomore there. It’s decided that I’m going to be playing worship for the welcome meeting on Friday.
Tuesday
First day of class, Technical Writing seems easy enough. Introduction to Computer Organization was pretty boring, and it looks like we’ll be using C and ASM a lot. We had stir-fry onion beef with carrots, bok-choy and rice for dinner. Will brought back a lot of people so we ran out of food. Cole told us to save him food, but ended up eating somewhere else and didn’t want to do dishes.
Wednesday
Psychology professor tells us he’s taking his furlough day on Thanksgiving week, which makes 3/4 classes furlough’d on Thanksgiving week. Physics teacher tells us we have a midterm on Thanksgiving week, Thanksgiving plans of coming back on Thursday the week before are ruined. Physics teacher spends an hour trying to explain Newton’s third law. We had Costco pizza for dinner. Cole said he’s on a diet and refuses to eat or pay for pizza, but then steals a slice later in the night.
Thursday
Technical Writing is going well, I volunteered for a few things, participated here and there, and I’m pretty sure the professor likes me now. Intro to Comp Organization got a little more interesting. We learned about a simulation computer called the LC-3, and how commands are processed from binary. We had spaghetti that night, before I went to worship practice.
Friday
I’m praying that there’s a high turnout of freshmen, and that our team doesn’t make any mistakes. We’ll see how everything goes.
Worship set for tonight:
- You Are Worthy of My Praise
- Your Grace is Enough
- Jesus, I My Cross Have Taken
- I Have Decided to Follow Jesus
- Salvation is Here
On love and loss, depression and trust
Love
Living, caring
Singing, talking, relaxing
Spirit elated, body depressed
Staring, thinking, contemplating
Judging, dying
Apathy
Discovering that
Even if you try your hardest,
Predestination still
Redirects you away from a joyful
Ending that you’d once undoubtedly
Surmised to be possible and likely;
Slaving away at the daily chores, without
Inspiration to guide you along your way, and
Overall, you think that there’s
No point in anything anymore.
Why can’t I find neither the courage, nor the audacity to make known to others what matters more?
Why do I feel like I’m being so narcissistic when I think about how to get help from others?
Why is it so easy for me to resist the inreach of others when they’re there to aid?
Why can I so easily judge others, quick to take note of their exact insincerity?
Why can’t I look at powerful religious figures and think they’re honest?
Why do I know You’re there, but don’t feel any comfort?
Why is it that my closest friends don’t know me at all?
Why do I feel like my whole life is a fake?
Why can’t I trust anyone?
Weird
“Akismet has protected your site from 14 spam comments already, but there’s nothing in your spam queue at the moment.”
But it won’t let me look at the comments anywhere, so I don’t really know if I consider those comments spam.
Well I’ll Talk
But the point of this blog is for myself, so keep that in mind, person/people reading this. (I’m not going to go on a shameless self-promotion rampage and email everyone I know to check out my blog post. [Nor am I trying to "make it big" in the blogosphere world.]) Ugh.
I’m mad at people. It’s because I’m not being accounted for, by the people who are supposed to be my brothers and sisters in Christ. The past two weeks I’ve skipped small group on purpose (well, the first week was because I felt dead), and to my dismay, the first week not one person asked me why I wasn’t there, and the second week only had meager improvement (yet small enough that I still wanted to punch a wall).
At this point, I’d like to cut in my own blog post at this point to say that I don’t really care for rational solutions/advice on this (especially since the problem itself is irrational). Rationality would say that it shouldn’t matter who cares if I’m there or not, but that only pushes the idea of spiritual independence. This is my blog, so I’ll write whatever I want in it. Otherwise, the only way I’d get this off my chest would be to act passive-aggressively or speak sarcastically to try to make fun of the situation (which both deconstructive, and plus, I’d have no one to rant to about this). And back to the point:
Yet, even though hardly anyone cared that I wasn’t there at small group, it seems like a certain person still cares about my ability as a programmer to continue working on the website, despite my absence from their meetings. It’s almost as though I’m being used: the enticement of small group was the bait, and signing me up to work on the website was the switch. And now that I’ve signed off my soul to working on the website, it no longer matters to him whether I attend small group or not (that is, if he even noticed in the first place).
Not that I expect every single person in small group to be concerned if I’m missing, but it takes some audacity for him to email me asking about the website without wondering (I know I’m being unfair right now).
Even then, I wish that people just knew stuff about me, but still cared about me (regardless of some undisclosed attributes I have, but that’s besides the point). I want to be in relationships beyond the point of people asking me, “What’s wrong?” to find out (much like my sentiments regarding how my closest friends ask me, “Do you want to eat lunch together?” instead of initially asking “Where are we eating?”). I’m not myself around anyone, and I’m not myself around me.
I should find someone who’s extremely gifted with discernment to be my accountability partner, or a mentor who can tell when something’s wrong.
