There must be more than this

I'm home, and I miss everyone at Cornell already. Scenes/memories of this year, of warmth run through my mind, and it baffles me how people can have so much love. I am truly overwhelmed. And my heart aches.

In middle school I was very bad at this. at moving on / saying goodbye /'dealing' with loving people and warm memories. And by very bad I mean crying for 1-2 years after someone special to me moved away. I wasn't good at this at all. Not that I'm any better now, but I guess God has taught me a lot since then. about pressing on toward the goal, looking ahead. And also that my heart/mind should be fixed on Him.

All this came to me as I stumbled across the song "Consuming Fire"

There must be more than this, O breath of God come breathe within
There must be more than this, Spirit of God we wait for you
Fill us anew we pray, Fill us anew we pray

The key phrase that resonated with me was "there must be more than this". In my mind, it meant: there must be more than this; there must be more to life than constantly seeking that warmth of friendship, and replaying those nice fuzzy memories, and longing to be entrenched in a community of love. There is more to life than harmonious loving relationships. All these are very good, and even Apostle Paul says that he thanks the Lord every time he thinks of his brothers. So I don't mean that we should forget people once they are not around us; that's not good. Paul constantly prayed for people in various places and wrote them encouraging letters when he couldn't be with them, and Paul said that he yearned to be with them. And we should do the same: continue to pray, love and encourage brothers and sisters who are not with us at the moment. Yet, at the same time, we should set our minds on things above, continue to press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called us heavenward.

A pastor wrote: "But if we have no vision, we perish because we end up spending all of our energy either trying to find pleasure or working to stay out of pain"
and that's kind of how I feel about changes in life. When we have a vision, a goal, a direction in life, we won't spend our time constantly seeking pleasure or preoccupied with avoiding pain. Of course, having a direction in life doesn't mean knowing exactly what God has called you to, because we don't know. And I struggled so long with this and still do, because I long to know what it is that God has called me to do so that I can start running after it.
It.
'so that I can start running after it'.
There is something wrong with that statement. And I keep forgetting that it's not really about running after your calling in life, but running after God. And God will guide you to where He wants you to be and what He wants you to do. so this vision, this direction in life is God. And this leads me to share another song that has been on my heart: "One Pure and Holy Passion"

Give me one pure and Holy passion
Give me one magnificent obsession
Give me one glorious ambition for my life
To know and follow hard after you

And that is the ambition, and that is the direction: to run after God. Not ministry or calling, but God.

And if you look at the big guys in the old testament: David, Moses, Joseph, etc. None of them had this grand plan of how they were going to do something awesome for God, but God chose them. And God put them where they needed to be and told them what to do. And all the glory went to God. A lot of times, I think that I need to come up with this awesome idea/plan of what I'm gonna do in the future, but then I forget that that's not what life is about.

What doesn’t destroy me makes me stronger?

A popular quote: What doesn’t destroy me makes me stronger
really?

But part of me is like: BUT WHAT IF I GET DESTROYED!?!

The closest bible verse is about suffering producing perseverance, character, hope
Romans 5:3-5 we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; ⁴perseverance, character; and character, hope. ⁵And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

so... I am ignoring the bible verse, because when I'm like "WHAT IF I GET DESTROYED?" I'm essentially saying: What if suffering DOESN'T produce character and hope? But it does. According to His word it does.
And it does because of His goodness and love and the Holy Spirit in us.

I'm not afraid of not making it to the other end of the tunnel. I'm more afraid of how I will turn out at the other end of the tunnel. Even if I don't get destroyed, even if I make it through the tunnel, I don't want to get damaged..

I feel like this quote, "What doesn't destroy me makes me stronger", ignores other aspects of being destroyed. What if something doesn't destroy you literally, but you come out of the tunnel angry, traumatized, bitter, tired, defeated ..? yes, you 'made it through'. but you are "destroyed" in a way.

and that is my fear.

But I forget that God is always with me. And I forget His goodness. Or more like I don't trust it. And I don't trust that if I do get hurt, that he will heal me and comfort me and renew me.

And my other fear is that at the end of all this, there isn't a reward that I have gained that I want that I don't already have. One way people deal with this fear of no (worthy) reward is that they know that God has called them to this path, and so their reward is obeying God and knowing He is pleased and doing it for Him.
But the problem is I don't know really know. At times I'm completely convicted that this is where I should be and what I should do. And at other times, I'm like: okay, I've gotten a lot out of this already and it's time to move on; this couldn't possibly be what God wants me to do.

Uncertainty. A lot of times when we ask God for direction, we ask motivated by our uncomfortable-ness with uncertainty. We seek God not to seek God but to seek direction.

I know my earthly parents. I know whether or not they would be okay with me doing this or that. I know how to explain my decisions using their reasoning. I know what pleases them. and I know they're proud of me even when I fail. Because I know they know this is not what life is about. Failure is good because you learn from it. And life is not about short-term "success".

And so, I feel like I need to know God, my Heavenly Father, more. So that the more I know God, perhaps the more I'd know about what pleases and honors Him. And thus make wiser, more Godly decisions.

Even in Pain

⁴²"Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done." ⁴³An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. ⁴⁴And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.

⁴⁵When he rose from prayer and went back to the disciples, he found them asleep, exhausted from sorrow. ~luke 22

I think it's interesting how after being strengthened by the angel of God, the next verse says "being in anguish". And so it shows how having strength does not mean you won't feel anguish.

And I looked up sweating blood. I couldn't find many case reports of it, except a few. They say it's really rare, and that it happens most often when people are experiencing extreme levels of stress. "multiple blood vessels which are present in a net-like form around the sweat gland constrict under pressure of stress. As the anxiety increases, the blood vessels dilate to the point of rupture. The blood goes into the sweat glands, which push it along with sweat to the surface, presenting as droplets of blood mixed with sweat."

O what pain that Jesus went through. and not just physical pain.

Pain that combines with compassion (and not bitterness). For even in pain, Jesus, on the cross said: "Father, forgive them". And in pain empathizing: "for they do not know what they are doing".

None of us know what we're doing, really. That's why we mess up a lot; we come to the wrong conclusions; we judge people; we harbor sinful feelings and say hurtful things. all because we're messed up ourselves. and now we are called to be perfect as He is perfect. and we are righteous by faith. and there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus. and love covers over a multitude of sins.

Thus, let us be united as one in Christ; let us be gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love.

NIV is so different

An example of how different NIV is from ESV or NKJV

This also happens to be an interesting verse that caught my eye, which is why I looked at the different versions.

Proverbs 18:1

NIV:

An unfriendly man pursues selfish ends; he defies all sound judgment

ESV:

Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound judgment

NKJV:

A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire; he rages against all wise judgment

Darby (just for fun):

He that separateth himself seeketh [his] pleasure, he is vehement against all sound wisdom

Well, that was interesting.

And it's interesting how some commentaries say that it can be a good thing because you can interpret the original as isolating yourself from things that hinder, for the sake of pursuing wisdom. biblebrowser.com/proverbs/18-1.htm

Our Father is pleased when...

My mom told me she is happiest when she sees my brother and I playing together, loving each other. And that she is the most upset when we don't get along.

And I was like oh, that's funny, because God is like that too! haha.

Like when brothers and sisters love each other and are united. We're His children. yay.

April

It's April and the sun is shining. And I'm starting to lose motivation for working. This happened around the same time last year too. But I think it's less severe this year. At least I'm going to make it less severe. I've already decided.

sigh. Man, and I thought I had developed a good understanding of what it meant to work as if I were working for God.

I realized that on days that I lose motivation to do work, I also lose sight of God. When I say losing sight of God, I actually mean losing sight of direction, of focused and specific thoughts about God and what He is doing in the community and people around me. I don't mean losing faith, or not loving God.

Maybe it's because we are meant to be more connected in each other's growth in God than we actually are. On those days, even having a normal-to-slightly-serious conversation can immediately bring back motivation to do work, although usually only temporarily.

O Lord, You have searched me

and You know me.

Well, I can analyze myself all I want, but really, I don't really know myself. But God knows me.

Pleasing God

Some things that happened this past week really made me think and also grow. It made think about whether or not I truly desired to please God. Do I truly fear God? Do I value Him more than all these?

Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Making "sacrifices", AKA surrendering certain tangible things to God, really helped me to grow this week. And part of me still feels like that surrendering/sacrifice really hurts, and I know I'll definitely feel the result of it more and more throughout this semester. yet I also feel that my fear of the Lord has really grown through this and that I can't and am not willing to turn back to my old ways. I need to keep reminding myself that there is nothing I can possibly lose when I have God. Like the man who found the treasure in the field and sold everything he had to buy the field. Like math, if God is infinity, then infinity minus 1 is still infinity. Therefore I have lost nothing.

In practice this is harder, because we tend to look to our left and to our right and to this world, instead of looking above toward God.