Challenges

Challenges can either make you or break you. I choose the former.

It's not surprising that this would be my first post for 2019. A lot has happened. Challenges happened. With God's grace, I was able to survive them.

As we have approached the 2nd half of the year, I cannot help but reflect on my challenges for the first half of 2019. Problems popped up in almost all the aspects of my life except love life... well, I think that one is really problematic, so I take back what I said, I had problems in EVERY aspect of my life. But I will not dwell on them too much for I know what will happen if I think about them too much.

But what I have learned through the hardships is "moving." In whatever state you are in, in whatever problem you are facing, you should always look up and look forward. Even if you feel like you are stuck, you have to still move, day by day, until the time comes when God would take you out of your slump. Successful people did not become successful by doing nothing. They moved, they initiated ideas even though many were against them, and they faced their giants. Even in front of their fears, the most important thing they did was to move. There were times that they stepped back but they took every learning experience from it.

I guess I am encouraging you, dear reader (or maybe me when I back read in the future), that whatever happens, hold on to hope and do not forget your goal. If you have achieved a goal, make another one or help others achieve theirs, and do not cease to hope for tomorrow. There will always be tomorrow until the day comes when we have to face our Maker.

Challenges made me who I am and made me learn more about myself and how to handle myself in adversity. I have yet to fully manage myself, but I am confident that I will continue to be positive and be joyous in hardships, for I know Who holds my tomorrows. 

Wait for the Lord

"Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD." Psalm 24:14

I have never been more sure of what God wants me to focus on this year. I have been side tracked by potential romantic ventures but through God's guidance and a bucket full of prayers, God has reminded me to seek His kingdom first.

It is so hard to wait for it (that special someone) especially when you see so much potential in a prospect and when you see that his heart is with the Lord. God has counseled me and has been constantly reminding me that this is one of His lessons about patience and humility, because I have asked Him before about this and now He is slowly teaching me, and I am forever grateful.

Yesterday, I have been so confused because my feelings and my thoughts are not well with each other. I was scared and really bothered because I was really close to following my emotions once again. Yes, once again, because I have been in this place before and I was impatient, I saw an opportunity and I grabbed it without waiting for God's go signal. The result? My heart  was crushed.

These few weeks my heart has been bothered my emotions that I couldn't fully understand but through God's wisdom, through bible verses and books, God has reminded me to trust in Him and... to wait for Him, wait for His plan to unveil before my eyes and the only thing required for me to do is to continue searching for Him. My prospect might be a distraction today but who knows, God might be reserving him to be a blessing in my life. Whatever happens today, I plan to seek God first. I pray that He will guide me as I do so.

He has said it before...

"But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." Matthew 6:33 

I have never been more excited in knowing more about Christ and in following His footsteps, not because I long for that special someone, but because of His goodness, His love, I want to know more about those things, because I feel like I've only seen parts of it. It is intoxicating and I want to learn more about Him. My heart wants to see more of Him and the way He is working in people. I have been blessed by His grace and I want to pay it forward. I want to let the people know that this is the God worth following. This is the God worth loving. This is the God who will never leave you. This is the God who will allow you to be hurt because He loves you. This is the God who has suffered before you have suffered. This is the Almighty God who has designed you and has known you before you were born. This God gave His ONLY Son so that you can live today... so that you can live with Him forever in all the glorious makings of heaven.

"For God so love the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16

It is hard, the work is hard, but I am sure that it would be worthwhile. He has given me glimpses of what could happen through testimonies and in my life, and I ask myself, why wouldn't I trust this awesome, infinitely gracious and astounding, magnificent God? 

God is at work

There are no accidents when God is at work. You might have met an old friend earlier or maybe thought of a colleague earlier. I tell you, that was no accident. God must have put them on your way or on your mind for a special reason.

As you might have known, I am working in a Christian company. Every first Tuesday of the month we have a fellowship called “Big Group.” It began with worshipping God with songs then someone would speak. This month’s topic was Evangelism, and I am reminded of why I was called to be a Christian. I was reminded of the love that God wanted us to share with everybody. I was reminded of planting the seed even though you’re not certain who will reap. I was reminded that every living breath is an opportunity to share God’s love.

I am still thinking of the reason why God brought me to this company. He might be thinking that I was becoming stagnant with my walk with Him. Maybe, this is one of my answered prayers because I could faintly remember that I prayed for a sound walk with Him. I really don’t know what’s in God’s mind, but one thing I’m certain of… He is with me wherever this life takes me, He knows me, and He will be with me until the end of time. The clarity of His love is solid.

God is at work as I type this. I should have been sleeping but I was inspired to write about Him and His grace. I forgot to mention that I was in the music team of the company I’m working at and earlier, at the “big Group” sinspiration, we were worrying because we had only a day of practice. We were not prepared mentally for it, but through God’s grace and guidance we were able to lead the people to singing praises for Him. It was really a humbling moment because we all knew that we weren’t prepared, our fingers were fumbling, the keyboard was having weird noises, the lead guitar was having technical problems, some of the music equipment were not working, yet the people were singing, so all praises to God because he answered our prayers before we played in the sinspiration. It was so humbling to be used by God. I just couldn’t stop praising Him because He has been gracious to me, to all of us in the music team. God knew our shortcomings and still, however broken or unpracticed we were, He used us. He could have picked a better instrumentalist but He chose us. My theory was He chose us because He wanted us to learn from this experience, so that one day we could include it in our testimonies of His greatness and His grace.

I haven’t been this enthusiastic since… I couldn’t remember, but really,  I just wanted to praise God through this blog post and I hope that whoever you are, to you who have read this blog… if you ever wanted to talk about God, share anything about your life, do not hesitate to contact me, I’d love to hear about you and how has God worked in your life.

All glory to God.

mercies in disguise

Blessings. The first time I listened to this song, I cried. Listen and look at the lyrics and you will know why I cried.

May you all be blessed by this song...