self-rant and thanks

haven't i been here before?

i hurt enough people, the scars are still nightmares i relive. i don't feel like i have a single relationship with a girl that i can be proud of. everything seems defiled, broken, wrong.

i let a girl come before God. i fell in love with physical touch and sensuality, i denied God for it. i've let myself be defined by a girl before, more so than God. let myself feel the way she saw me, let myself be affirmed by her. i know what it feels like to invest too much emotionally, in unhealthy ways. i know what it feels like to think about a girl more than God. i know what it feels like to use God as a facade to get to a girl, and i know how things spiral out of control so fast, a stumbling block to both me and her.

how foolish can i get? how wrong can i be?

---update and thanks---

just here in tulsa. a little boring, but good. took a long run (well....long considering i haven't been running) on Riverside, ate and played music at church, new guitar strings, which i'm sorta pumped about, and basketball, a party, and Bedlam tomorrow. it's nice being back home, but i find myself waiting until i can get back to Norman and have more to do. i don't know why it feels that way. waking up at OU, i seem to have so much more of a drive than i do here.

big thanks about my dad, for anyone following the story of my life. he's been put on new meds, and i was almost certain, along with my mom, that'd be headed towards a group home in Vinita. my mom even went to go drop him off, but she wouldn't leave him there due to the conditions or something, so he came back home. but lately, he's actually been different, and when he tells me he's been getting better, i have an easier time believing it because i actually see it in him. we actually sit down and have conversations and when we go out to lunch, he even comes. he is more involved, even if only in small steps. he's been taking his meds lately, and it's been working, i guess. praise God though, not the meds. He has provided and shaped my dad's heart, He has made our family the way that it is, He has kept things from ultimately breaking. He has restored, revived, resurrected.

thanks to be back in Tulsa, for my best friend Billy being back as well. thanks for long runs and great weather, getting to drive a car around, late nights in the dark typing on a laptop, a loving family, great friends and great memories, and a greater God. let me have no complaints. contentedness, satisfaction, and yet an increasing hunger and desire and pursuit for a living God. His glory is from everlasting to everlasting, so much so that the angels continue to praise Him and will never get to the end of His praise, to the limits of His majesty.

thanks to rooming with Phong, laughs with Jojo, basketball with the guys, Tuesday nights with CRU, basketball nights with friends, music with Yellow Fever, and even tutoring with DLC. thanks to coffee for helping me get through the day, being at OU and no other place but OU, all the great memories i've shared with my youth group and high school friends, all the great things yet to come that are filled with promises and challenges and trials, and thanks that the promises are greater than the challenges.

the day before Thanksgiving thoughts

weather like this and being back in tulsa make me feel like taking a shower and going to Panera to write and listen to their jazz music. things haven't really been rocky, i guess they've been pretty smooth. i'm slacking a little in my classes and hanging out more. i feel like i'm a pretty strong believer in not leading multiple lives. i used to live a triple life, split between home, school, and church. to me, i guess i want to be as sincerely and genuinely me wherever i go, and i don't see why someone shouldn't be able to get to know the real me.

here are some things i feel like i've been learning about myself lately, and some random thoughts as well:

i have a very hard time laughing at myself.

when asked what was my most embarrassing moment, i couldn't answer. certainly, i've done stupid things, even stupid things in public. but i still don't know how to answer. what is embarrassing? ashamed to be yourself? one of the passages i've been coming back to over the past year since i first read it says to boast in your weakness and insecurity and imperfection, that God is strong in our weakness.

i have a hard time being social...i am mostly dependent on the other people i am interacting with. i'm not exactly antisocial, but... i don't know what it is. but it's probably me. maybe i do not count others worthy of my interest...in which case, that sounds downright awful.

i have a large fear of not fitting in or belonging.

i feel like i live in the shadows of my father and sister.

my lethargy in school has gotten stupid. i really need to step up my game.

we all do things. i guess the question is, do you find God in that thing? are you moved closer to Him, do you see Him in it, do you feel His freedom or His love in it? in everything we do, we move towards or away from Him. stagnancy isn't possible. you can't seal up your salvation one day and then just coast through the rest of life - it's a daily battle.

i am desperate for new guitar strings. it's been nearly a year since i changed my strings out. i am a little at odds with playing worship though. i'm not sure what i'm really doing when i play sometimes, and i don't mean the music.

i hung out with a group of people these past couple of days. we went dogwalking and hung out and played music and basketball. it was a lot of fun. i feel like it's somewhat distracting for me though. i don't seem to pray as much or be focused on Him as much when i hang out with them. i still have that fear that i don't fit in or feeling like i'm the odd one in the group, the black sheep, or perhaps the elephant in the room. it's these guys and my old youth group in Tulsa where i feel at home. and CRU, somewhat.

watch out (die another day)

watch out. i'm going to go for broke. once again, my heart begins to tear at me, perhaps not from the inside out, but from the outside in. Jesus talked about this in Matthew. it isn't what man eats that makes him unclean or defiled on the inside... it's not what goes into a man, but what comes out of him that makes him unclean or defiled. well, i'm tired of being shaken so easily.

i'm tired of all of these thoughts bombarding me, and i'm not going to lie down and let them bury me alive. i'm going to go for broke again. i'm going to run that race that isn't supposed to be possible. by God, i'll run it, and i'll fall apart, but you better hold me back because i'm not quitting.

too often this has happened, where i'll fall apart and stay down. not tonight. i'm going to die another day, but this day belongs to God, and i'm going to give my all. i'm going to be undignified about it, uncomposed, exposed. do you see my weakness? i won't deny it. why would i? God is strong in it. read 1 Corinthians 1. God rather prefers me broken and weak and small. i'm a no one by anyone's standards. but the kingdom of heaven is mine. i'll thirst for righteousness and be jealous for correction, i'll be zealous for emptiness. and i'll be filled.

God, make me strong in You. lift me up by Your righteous right hand, make me strong in Your promises. make me to recognize beauty, to see that i am so sustained, so loved, so held by You. who should i fear? what should i fear? my deepest desires and dreams are known by You. my deepest scars and pains are healed by You, my hardest questions and doubts and frustrations answered by You. the weakness of my faith has not turned You away, but You have loved me and hated my sin, intolerated it, despised it. You will set me free from it because it is not pleasing to You, but i have been made pleasing in Your eye, in Your very image, and i am known by You though i am small. make me new in You, make me to sing a new song.

all my thoughts, all my heart belong to You. there is no one, no other name by which i am saved. there is no other one who cares, who sees, who loves past convenience and inconvenience. You have loved past inconvenience, to the extent of a love that does not make sense, that we cannot even comprehend. it is so great, it is even described with dimensions - oh, that we might know the height and the depth and the width of Your love. that we may begin to fathom the unfathomable, to grasp the incomprehensible. that we may be blown away by You.

i won't stop tonight. i want to max out until it is clear i am given to a greater thing to be myself. i want to be able to say i gave as much as my heart could take. not tonight am i going to lie down and complain. be valiant for truth. fight for it.

response to 11/9/08 lesson

hey guys. i kinda wanted to add something to what Mr. Morris talked about on Sunday, but i didn't have a chance, so i guess i'm going to say it here.

do you remember what he said about what would happen if you took away all of Bill Gates' money? he would probably be able to get most of it back, just based on the way he thinks. i think it's a pretty common story for entrepreneurs... they make money, and even if everything ends up falling apart, they are able to take a step back, look at things, start again, and get their money back. for Bill Gates, he has a lot of riches and blessings, but it also has something to do with his mindset and his heart.

mr. morris mentioned how it was like our external circumstances shouldn't control our internal circumstances - how we think, how we act. you can take someone's riches away, and how they respond will most likely tell you something about their heart. in a walk with God, everyone eventually screws up, and you see this time and time again even in the people that Jesus called to walk with Him or with David in the Bible or our own lives - what matters is how we act after we have fallen, what we do when things get tough.

so the problem isn't always exactly the circumstances, and the focus isn't exactly on the circumstances either. it's where your heart is. things can be great and you can be dead inside, and you can come alive in the storm.

the problem isn't solely the circumstances, though it is oftentimes the excuse. [you can't really do whatever you want just because you have a bad day. there's such a thing as anger management.]

so with youth group, the circumstance of leadership isn't the sole problem. we had mike, and it was like we had a fortune. take him away, and will we just crumble? if you want to get something out of it, it will sometimes have to flow out of your own heart. one random Saturday night this past summer, i talked to Billy and we both agreed church had been sorta stale, and we agreed to pray and to say that, even if nothing happened, we were going to be looking for God to move. we were going to be looking for Him just like we looked for Him when we went to Acquire the Fire or Michigan. and we did. it was difficult, but we saw God, by His grace.

i guess it's pretty clear that circumstances help and hurt - when circumstances are good, things will be going well, and vice versa. when we had mike, things were obviously easier. now that we have mr. morris, things are obviously a bit tougher. that doesn't mean you replace mr. morris with someone else who makes everything easier for you. but if you say, "i'm only going to start enjoying youth group when we have a new person in charge" or "i'm only going to start listening when we talk about something more than salvation," the attitude of your heart is in the wrong, and it's dependent on the circumstance. as long as it's God he's preaching, can there really be anything wrong with it?

then the question might be why or how long you should keep yourself in a circumstance that may only hurt. and i guess i would respond by saying that i think we should listen to God, to find something like God-sufficiency, rather than self-sufficiency or church-sufficiency or youth-pastor-sufficiency. be completed by God - the point of everything is relationship with God, more so than comfort or convenience. if God keeps you at TCCC, even if you are reluctant - well, you should follow God and you go where He leads you. as followers of Christ, we should follow Christ, and we should be willing. if God moves you to a different church, who are any of us to argue with God? the most any of us can ask is that you are right with God.

i love having everyone together at church. i love the community that we have and the bonds that have been formed through the years...the parties we've had, the music we've played, the laughs we've shared. but it's not worth it if we miss out on God. we must be right with God.

and if God moves you to take an active role in the youth group, then take it. you'll be rewarded. but don't take your eyes off Him. don't move out of selfishness, but glorify God in all things.

thanks for reading, take care :)

nothing's going to ruin today

hey guys. it's been a while since i've been up here. part of it is just that i write posts and just save them as drafts because i feel like my writing has been very jumbled lately, and part of it is just that i've been sorta consumed by school and ministry. there have been a whole bunch of ups and downs lately, but i think that there is consistently an overflow of grace. i feel like i get lifted up so easily, like God is really blessing me despite my bursts of unfaithfulness and disobedience.

i really felt like sharing because i felt like i heard from God today. things had been going kind of badly. my mom's van broke down and i guess our financial situation is tighter than i thought (and i'm kind of ignorant about money), and my dad was in the hospital for a little over a week two over the past two weeks. that's pretty much the whole story. things have been going kind of bad, and i started feeling a lot more pressure to make good grades and get scholarships and internships and really get my act together.

i spent Sunday night and Monday being mad and sad at things, and skipped my math class because things just seemed terrible. i went and talked to the Asian American student life director at OU, and he sorta helped me out and prayed for me, and i held up until the end of work. for some reason, i came back and lounged for a while, but then things started going bad again. i went and played basketball at the Huff and got madder and madder as i played. i played recklessly and was a bit of a jerk.

i walked back to the dorms at about 1 or 1:30 and managed to pray a little. after hearing what's been going on with my family, it has been pretty challenging trying to keep praying and to keep saying "Blessed be Your name." i was still wondering, though, what it was that i was supposed to be doing, after what had happened with my family.

tuesday morning came and i woke up still pretty frustrated. the weather was great. after my first class, the wind was heavy and the leaves were blowing around, so it was only natural to go for a run. i went and ran at the track for the first time this year with a new pair of shoes. turns out that they really started hurting my arches, so i ran on the infield barefoot for a while. at the end, i just sorta stood there, stretching, feeling the breeze around me, and it just sorta felt like God said that He was going to give me a good day, so i should enjoy it. i don't know how i got that in my head, but i sorta believed it.

i sorta felt like i could have become depressed if i wanted to. i could have let the pressures pile up and gotten mad at everyone around me, or i could have really tried to have a good day again. i felt like God was sorta giving me a gift - the blessing of a good day. and so i took a shower, felt really cool walking around campus, and felt like my heart really was being blessed with peace which surpasses understanding (Philippians 4:6-7). i felt really good, like nothing was going to ruin today, and - it didn't really make that much sense.

so that's what happened. i feel like a lot of people were praying for me, and that blessed me a lot, and that God really gave me security with Him. as i was asking what i should be doing in response to what has been going on with my family, i sorta felt like i should be filled with joy and hope, as a light. let it be contagious.

so, that's a praise. God gave me things to be happy about. weather was awesome, we had a pretty nice Bible study as well, good time at Campus Crusades, even some good grades. um, so i really can't complain. praise be to God... i enjoyed today. let me be drawn closer to You, no matter what happens. You are good and You know what You're doing..