Today is Tuesday, the 15th
day of September, year 2015. I have decided to write and share to you the
amazing things that God taught and revealed to me that you may be encouraged
with His Word as well. I truly believe that God speaks to us through His people
in a lot of His ways, in any circumstance that we are in. For that, I am
grateful that we serve a God of specificity especially in terms of
progressively transforming and shaping us to become more like Him as we follow
Christ every day of our stay here on earth. I couldn’t be more excited to be in
heaven with our Heavenly Father, but I don’t want to lose the opportunity of
having a meaningful relationship with God and being able to reach out those who
have no idea yet that even if we are living in a cruel world, we can live a
life of purpose with a knowledge that there is Someone who loves us so much
and willingly died for us; who is more than able to give anything to us now
because He gave everything already by the shedding of His blood, on the Cross
2,000 years ago.
I could say I had a rough day
that turned out to be good and productive. It happened that my carelessness
labored again! Hooray! I took my first ever AutoCAD exam on my graphics
subject early this morning. By the way, I am a civil engineering student
currently living out every season that God is giving me, cherishing every
moment no matter how well or bad my days may get. I was so confident upon
computing the data that I will input that I actually got them all wrong. You know
that instances where you just know by instinct and say to yourself, ‘this
should not look like it’ or ‘this is not supposed to be like it’—that occurred
to me. Therefore, I just did what I could do at the moment which is the other
exam parts. Then, at the last 15 minutes, I suddenly figured out what was wrong
to begin with. The assurance that I had while mentally computing the data was
not good for me, at all. I confused multiplication with addition. One small mistake,
and it changed everything—my performance and grade.
While walking on my way home, I wrestled with God. I asked Him what
He is telling me through the exam. I remember a lot of times God would bring me
back to the truth that even when I think I am good enough with what I do, I am
still limited because I am just a human. And that there will always be someone
who is better than me. That I still get tired, and in need of a sleep just so I
can function better again, just like everybody else. But this time, I believe God reminded me of Him
being in full control in my life at the end of each day. God walked with me and
tapped me, saying ‘Hey, I am not looking at you by your performance. It’s okay,
my child, your worth is not dependent with what you did or did not do but
merely on what my Son did there. You are still at peace right now at the
expense of knowing you may fail at that exam because your hope is not on the
things that you see but on a Person who is unseen.’
I find it mind-blowing that God has His own style to communicate to
us, how maybe busy we are. I testify to this because for the last few days I
admit I wasn’t able to have my quiet time with God. Yes, I have time to listen
to His Word but to no avail, without really having a personal interaction
through prayer. I thank God that He knows what He is doing, knows how exactly
to discipline me and is lovingly patient to me also. I just finished one of
Elevation Church’s series entitled “Your Verse”. This series taught me how one
verse could change our life and encouraged me to have my own life verse too.
The preaching of Pastor Chris Allen from Matthew Campus really spoke
to my heart tonight. He talked about Philippians
3:8 that tell “What is more, I
consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing
Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them
garbage that I may gain Christ.” He still finds it a struggle to really
understand this verse but for him, it is so real and alive.
For many of us, we encounter ‘wins and loses’all the time. We do
what we do for the sake of winning. But Chris Allen enlightened me that there
are many things in life that I can lose, and still win. In general, the reality
is, we just don’t want to lose so that nobody sees us as a loser but that they
would see us as a winner. Because we don’t actually care whether we lose or
win. Yet, we live life as if it’s all about winning and losing for the reason
that the world teaches so. Similarly, the things that we live for, things that
we attempt to win to give us value; for someone to say you are good enough,
most of the time they are worthless. We come to a point where we realize that
they are meaningless (Ecclesiastes 1:14, 12:13).
So we wonder, how can we bring meaning to the meaningless in our
life? Ecclesiastes 12:13 encourages us to fear God and keep His commandments;
because this is man’s all. Fearing God is not being afraid to Him but knowing
Him, revering and worshiping Him. When we get a meaningful relationship with
Jesus Christ, we come alive as we get to live our wonderful borrowed life. Yes,
it may be a battle for some of us but I believe that it is a daily process of
putting our relationship with Christ above other things. It is progressive.
Chris Allen also mentioned it’s not as if all the wins in our life
our bad, but they only become bad when we put them ahead of Christ. And that’s
the time we consider them garbage. Since he challenged me with the some
questions, I challenge you with me to take time pondering and answering each
question before God with an honest heart.
Here are they:
1. What are you chewing on?
(Chewing means meditating)
- Have a bible reading plan!
2. Who are you listening to?
- Pray and ask that God will show you specific things; that you will sense and be more aware with His callings to you.
- Hear what He is saying
3. Who are you close to?
- Ask people who can help you spiritually to remind you that you are living for the wins!
- Identify people who would help you discern what God is saying to you.
4. What is it that you need to
throw in a garbage can to get your priorities straight?
- Confront yourself. It might hurt but I assure you it's worth it!
I pray that we will all learn to see the more significant things God
wants us to run after, in God’s perspective. As we seek Him more, I also pray
that we will not forget His presence even in the days that we don’t sense it.
It all comes from realizing that our hope in Christ and our faith is not
entirely based on our present feelings but I hope that we will carry out the
works of God in and through us even with our ‘lose-to-win’ situations.
"In Christ, you will be much more willing to lose if you know the
value of the return--of the win."
