SG Sim-ulation

With no real topic in mind, I thought I would write about how God has driven my life unexpectedly since high school began to becoming a small group leader. So grab your seat (or your mouse) because you're in for a wild ride...

At the start of my freshman year, I thought I had my high school career planned out. Little did I know of the things that God had planned instead. Believe it or not, freshman year would be my hardest year of high school (I'm serious). I became so ambitious and proud that I became involved in so many activities. My parents also forced me to participate in other activities as well. Soon, I found myself involved in piano, orchestras, sports, debate, and church and what not. This hindered my grades and especially my connection with God. I remember my freshman year was the year that I had to manage my time the most. However, to this day, I believe that God had me go through all this in order to make things easier for me today. These lessons that God brought forth to me has allowed me to find time to put God in my life every single day in supposedly my toughest year of high school.

Now fast forward to this year...

The biggest reason that I agreed to become a small group leader this year was because of the lessons I learned in my freshman year of high school. People always complain about juggling too many things at once. But for me, I had no excuse because I literally had the most stressful freshman year. If I could survive that, I could be able to lead others in fellowship in a year that was probably less stressful than before. I never had aspirations to become a small group leader but hey, God doesn't let you choose what you want and don't want to be sometimes. As junior year went by, I increasingly found myself closer to God because I had to hold myself accountable as a leader. Despite missing WiRE, I felt that the experience back at home was a big test of my faith in which I was able to really focus on prayer.

Overall, the biggest lesson is basically to let God drive your life. It's always good to get through the toughest situations first because it makes everything that much easier. In the same way, I challenge you to strengthen your faith ASAP instead of waiting because it will make every year of your future easier. So don't follow the norm! You can never be too spiritually mature for any age!

Simeon Lam

                   

(Insert title here)

I'll admit, I totally forgot about this till the last day I was supposed to type this up because of prom preparations, so to all you underclassmen, don't do what I did haha. Anyways, I found this testimony that I wrote a while ago for something that I don't remember, but it was probably during a very dark time. I also tweaked it because the one I wrote didn't make sense to me as I typed it.

  An imperfect person like me doesn't deserve to be loved or even shown love. However, that doesn't stop God from loving someone even like me. God didn't hate anyone, and that's because God is love. He chose to love me, even though I was unfaithful, sinful, and not what I should be--a true Christian. Sure, no one is defined as a "true Christian", but I am far from being the ideal Christian. My life clearly doesn't reflect what Jesus' life was like. However, God still loved me anyways. He showed me love that no one ever showed me. 

  I personally believe that God's love comes in multiple flavors, the first one being grace. God loved me so much that He showed me grace by dying on the cross for me. I live a pretty sinful life and I probably don't deserve to talk to God, but because I know that Jesus died for my sins for me, I can experience his graceful love. I feel so dirty at times and so full of sin, but I know that God still loves me with love that I don't deserve. He heals me in my sicknesses, calms me when I am troubled, forgives me when I am not worthy, and even shows me miracles here and there. 

  The second type of love is his abundant love for me. The many times I sinned against Him, the many times he showed his love for me still. There were many times in my junior year when I felt really distant from God because I put myself in a place where I thought I wouldn't bother God. Boy was I wrong. His love stretches from the east to the west; there is no place that you can go to where His love can't reach. Because His love is so vast and incomprehensible, I still don't understand His love, yet still accept it, because it is by HIs love that I am forgiven and saved. 

  There are many more types of love, but in short, His love is summed up as my redemption from eternal separation from Him. If you ever feel like you don't deserve His gracious love, you're wrong. When Jesus died for us, He paid the price for us so that we could be loved by being with our Creator forever, if that made any sense. 

Anyways, this song was played really frequently during my junior year because it just reminded me of who God really was--someone who was waiting with arms wide opened for us. I was really broken that year, and even as I listen to the song now, it brings me to tears.

Hopefully I didn't bore you with that testimony, but that's what was on my heart so I put it on pen and paper. 

Have a little mercy

Hello children! My name is Edwin. For the most part, I am a pretty easy going person. So recently, I had a run into a conflict at FCBC the other day. So if you didn't know, fcbc hosts open gym volleyball (every first Thursday of each month at 7:30pm) and most of the people that go do not attend fcbc. So every week you walk into the MPB(gym) and you sign up on these white boards and basically there was this one person( lets call him Tyrone) who thought I had cut them.  So imagine a 5 foot 3 guy walking around trying to act all tough and pro.He got really worked up and you could tell he was annoyed and pissed off(maybe at me, I'm not sure). But anyways, trying to be the nicer person, I offered to let him go ahead and sign up ahead of me. He then shook his head angrily, puffed his "buff" chest and grabbed the marker to write down his name. So he actually didn't get to play first. The whole time I was playing I could almost feel his gaze(pretty sure he was dogging me the whole night) and imagine him thinking " this dumb kid screwed us over ". I'm not sure why but it really bothered me that he was so cocky but could barely hit over the net. He really got under my skin and after I had gotten home, I could not stop thinking about how childish he acted, given the circumstances.

Now what does this have to do with anything???? Going to back to Johnny's talk about mercy, after reading Ethan's post, I definitely felt a little guilty for not showing mercy and compassion. Maybe Tyrone had a really bad day? Who knows but maybe I shouldn't have been so quick to judge and showed him the mercy that God has shown us. Undoubtedly, we are so undeserving of God's grace and yet he still sent his son down on the the cross to save our sins. Leading to good Friday service which is tonight at 7:30pm. Hope to see you there!

JonnyTalk_Grace_Contentment

Last week in HiKoi we had a Jonny Talk on God’s grace.  Jonny talked about how grace is getting something (good) that you don’t deserve.  And begun to unpack how often we neglect to see all the good things we’ve been given though we never did anything to deserve them, namely a relationship with God Himself through Christ.  He used a simple abstraction to illustrate.

Abstraction (1)

As Christians many of us have had the mentality to find something bigger than ourselves, something or someone worth living for, and we yearn for a life that is more satisfying than the one we are living for now.  And in this yearning we turn to God.

"I Want God"

But what would our mentality be if as Christians we became a truly selfless people?   Perhaps we’d be a people who would draw all people (me, you, us, them) towards God, and all would desire for God.

"Want God"

But what if we as Christians, on top of being truly selfless people, were also content?  What if we didn’t really want anything in particular because we were happy knowing that we have and will always have everything that we need?  In selflessness and contentment, we’d find the one that makes selflessness and contentment possible because He is so graciously good.

“God"

Dude..Jonny’s so deep.. 

End of Abstraction (1)

In my mind, it sounds something that his brother Matt would say.  Also kind of like Pastor Dan.. Also kind of Tim Keller-y...I digress.

Jonny also talked about how this is has been relevant to his current circumstance: not getting into any of the schools he wanted to get into.  Though disillusioned from the whole process, Jonny said that he’s been recently comforted in the fact that God is in control of his future.  Jonny said even though he didn’t get what he wanted, God has good things planned for him, and for Jonny that thought has been freeing.

The one thought I had circling my mind while Jonny was speaking about grace and contentment I’ve shared once before.  But I’ve always been challenged by the thought that on the night which Jesus was betrayed, He took bread and gave thanks.  If it were me, I would not be thankful.  I would not trust God knowing that the Father would deliver me to be crucified the way Jesus was.  And yet Jesus understood that the Father wanted good things for His children.  And because of that underlying trust in the Father, Jesus was grateful for everything the Father provided.  Even the small things like bread.

In life, God will not give us everything we want, but even in times of disillusionment He asks us to trust Him.  When we ask, “Why am I in this circumstance?”  He asks us to remember who He is and what He has done.  (In three words: Good and Plenty) #Candy?  He asks us to let go of the things we have no control over, and to let God handle them.  He asks us to trust and obey.  

Accept grace, friends.  Be content in Christ.

That said happy Passion Week!

Ethan