abundance

If I wrote less, would that make my words more meaningful? Would writing less make someone think more about what I say?

God is the abundant God and he loves to give freely to His children! I see God providing in so many aspects of my life. School, missions, strength, and it goes on and on. Because I am weak, I have to continually rely on His strength, His wisdom, His understanding. Every victory I have is because of Jesus. It's because my God provides abundantly despite my failures and weaknesses. Ask and you shall receive. Align yourself with God's heart and ask what's on His heart and he will reveal it to you. Pray. Pray that God will provide, pray for others, and don't try relying on yourself. Let God take control and he will lead you to a beautiful life. (:

"So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God" (1 Corinthians 10:31).

Kingdom

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

"Our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever."

"For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do" (Ephesians 2:10).

Kingdom. What is a kingdom? When the Messiah was foretold in the Bible, the Jews expected a political Messiah. They believed that a Messiah was going to come to overthrow Caesar so that they would be in part of His kingdom. They would be free from all worries because their good king would look after them, but Jesus didn't come to overthrow Caesar. However, God had an even better plan.

It took me a really long time to understand what Jesus meant by "kingdom." I'm still learning as he gives me little glimpses the more I learn about him. I always thought God's kingdom was symbolic and only symbolic, but it isn't. Jesus wants to establish His kingdom here on earth. After realizing that, things started clicking. God's kingdom is a kingdom full of love, full of selfless people, full of people who love God. It's beautiful. It's like an utopia, except it's forreal. How do those verses and the Lord's Prayer have to do anything about the Kingdom? Let's start with Matthew 6:33. I love this verse! This was my key verse a few years ago and I still hold onto it today. For these past few years, my understanding of the verse was -- if I seek God first, he will provide everything I need. Now I see that Jesus really wants to me seek his kingdom. To me, it just meant putting God before everything, but there's something more deeper than that. To pursue God's kingdom is to love the people around me and to love them well. That's God's kingdom, a kingdom full of love. When Jesus taught his disciples how to pray, he taught them to pray for God's Kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven. I believe that's the society and community of love among all believers. The last verse - Ephesians 2:10 - is my key verse for this year. In my New Year's key verse testimony, I said I wasn't quite sure why I chose this verse, but that I knew I had to. Throughout this year, God's been revealing to me what I am to do. I am to love others. That's what we were created to do.

This was a really concise paragraph about God's Kingdom. I might add on to it when I learn more.

I am sooo thankful for the people God has placed in my life who look after me so well. I am so thankful for my mom who cooks such delicious food every night! Ahh, I realized that I am never left hungry. In fact I always have food at home and not just any food, but good food. I'm so thankful for this community of people God has placed in my life!

It seems like I've been talking a lot lately. I really hope that I will really do what I write about -- encourage, love, etc. If I told you about it but I didn't do anything, my words would have no meaning to it. It would be tenuous (if I used this word correctly). As I learn to love, I encourage you guys to love as well!

Random life lesson: The more you give, the more you receieve.

praise

It's been really busy this week, but hey, it's the finale of junior year. There are things piled on top of each that it's crazy, but I'm trusting God. He will always bring me through the toughest times! I know that God's promises never fail because it's the truth.

Yesterday we had a discussion about truth in TLC. People brought up all kinds of crazy things in the beginning of the discussion with truth being relative and whatnot, but by the end, we came to the conclusion that truth always prevails. The truth cannot fail. If it fails at least one time, it's not the truth. One thing that stuck out to me the most was John 14:6 - "Jesus answered, 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.'" Someone made a really good analogy about math. When we use absolute values, what we're measuring is essentially the distance from zero. In the same way, Jesus is zero. Jesus is the truth. Because Jesus said "I am the way and the truth and the life" Jesus is the center, the zero; to know what is true or not, we can compare it to the teachings of Jesus. More importantly, we need to seek Him. If you asked me what I got out of the discussion, that would summarize everything. Seek Jesus. (:

Random side note, but I would have to say junior year has been my favorite year. Not because it was easy. In fact it was the hardest, but that's what makes me like it. It challenged me and sometimes I felt like giving up and just doing nothing, but God taught me so much. He allowed me to have greater friendships and through all the struggles, he refined me. He is still refining me right now, but I learned to trust Him in a greater level. Now I am confident that God's promises never fail. It's not just something I hear from other people, I know from my experiences that God never fails. I know he has the best plans for me. I know his ways are better because many parts of this year did not go the way I planned it. For instance, I didn't really plan to take photography, but it happened and surprisingly, I learned so much much from it!

Peace. I love the peace that comes with following Jesus. I know everything will work out in the end. Jesus has my future in his hands and it's going to be beautiful!

I was getting discouraged during the beginning of the week. (Satan really likes to discourage any chance he gets!) So I asked God for encouragement and it was amazing because at the perfect timing, my friend sent me a letter. Then strangely, emails that don't really seem encouraging somehow encouraged me. I realized that there's such beauty in God's Kingdom and his people. How God's people interact and love each other is simply beautiful. It's selfless. It contrasts with the world (juxtaposition!). And yes, encouraging each other continually is so important. One more thing about encouragements. I think encouraging someone is speaking truth over the person.

Okay, so how does all of this relate to praise? Well what happened was I began this post meaning to write about praise and I guess I got sidetracked. Praise. What is praise? I think praising God is a way of worshiping Him, but singing songs is not praise. Music alone, sung, played without any meaning to it is just music. I thought about this during worship time last Sunday. In every single praise team, I'm sure everyone has made a mistake. Some more than others, but everyone has made a mistake and will continue to make mistakes. Sometimes I get caught up in that during praise practice. Instead of meaning the words I sing, sometimes I just sing them. When I do that, I am not praising God. I believe praising God comes from the heart. I thought about how silly we look to God when we care so much about the music and how it sounds because what's God looking at? He's not counting how many times I messed up. He's not looking at the appearance of things, but he's looking on the inside. He's looking at my heart and at your heart. When I worship God, I want my heart to be right with Jesus. Sometimes I get caught up in needing to sing the "right" songs, or choosing "good" songs, but really, praise is not about the song and how good it is. I mean, it is very important to choose appropriate songs to help lead everyone into worship, but essentially it really is not about the music. It is also important to praise God throughout the week. Do you think God only deserves thirty minutes of your praise on the weekend?

Speaking of praise, during praise practice on Sunday, one person made a comment on how she didn't feel rushed that particular day. These are not her exact words, but that was a good point she made! I was reminded about what I learned last year. I was always in a hurry to do more in less amount of time and God taught me last year to take my time. Why are we always in a rush? Why do we always hurry? Why do we have to do more and more instead of doing one thing really well? Everything in society is about efficiency and how fast you can do things. That's why we have fast food restaurants, and etc. Yet, I realized that it's when I don't rush and do what I am doing well, that's when I save the most time. I don't have to go fix what I did poorly in the first place. I don't have the rushed feeling.

This was long. Thanks for reading if you read all of it. (:

RAW

I finally get it.

When I first got my new camera, which I guess isn't so new anymore, it was set on 18 megapixels. I fiddled around with it, taking pictures here and there. When I uploaded the pictures, it took soooo long for me to download the pictures to my laptop. So then I made the decision then to just shoot in 8 MP. The quality was still great and I definitely wasn't going to enlarge pictures to ginormous sizes anytime soon. But then I heard how the RAW file was great and everything. I was like okay, but whatever. I can't shoot in RAW because my computer will be too slow. But then today, my photography teacher talked to me about shooting RAW and how it was so much better.

Then I came home and tried it out.

I finally get it.


Shooting in RAW is x10 more in size. One picture is around 30 MB, but you can get so much more quality out of it. It makes editing more versatile because there are more pixels so when I edit, it looks so much better. I doubt that I'll be shooting RAW all the time in the future because I definitely don't have a laptop that can support that at the moment, but I'll try.

This is not the best edit because I was playing around with it, but you can really see it pop out.


I realized that I wasn't taking the full advantage of the camera that I have. Things get really expensive. Big files = fast computer processor = stuff I don't have, but it's okay. I have enough.

Then here's an analogy. I was thinking about how when you shoot in RAW, it is so much easier to edit. Doesn't Jesus want us to simply be "raw" in front of him? Just completely honest and ready to be molded in his ways?

love

Today in TLC, we had the opportunity to talk about prayer. We were able to teach people how to pray with ACTS - (adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication). There really is something special about adoring God. After we discussed through ACTS, we practiced what we learned though we only had seven minutes. I loveee listening to people adore God. There's something special. I believe we move God's heart when we declare who God is. I believe declaring who God is helps us really believe who God is; listening to others declare who God is reflects how they view our Father. Try listening to someone's prayers one day. When you do, you can really see what's on their heart and mind.

My God can move mountains. Nothing is too big for him. Nothing is impossible with God. (:

This weekend, I started reading a book called One.Life. Nowadays, it seems that whenever I read or hear something, I keep stumbling over this verse -- "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'" (Luke 10:27). Jesus summed all the 613 commandments with these two. Love God, and love others. He didn't give us an option; it was a command. This past week I've been learning more about loving others. As the book One.Life emphasizes over and over, Jesus didn't come for us to just have a relationship with Him. Yes, that is extremely important in Christianity, but he came to restore his Kingdom. That lays a responsibility on Christians to give to the needy, help the brokenhearted, and on and on. How can I claim to love God and not help someone in their need?

Then I stumbled on http://thedoveseyes.com/the-doves-eyes/ (read it!). I want dove eyes. I was also listening to Misty Edward's "Dove Eyes" and it was really really good. It was the first time I heard it today and I think I can hit replay 100 times.

I've been thinking about missions lately. Think about this quote -- "I have a question for you to ponder, and what I hope happens is that you take this question to some of your friends and chat about it and chew on it and work it over until you have sense of resolution. The question is: Why do so many today want to wander off to South Africa or Kenya or India or Russia or Honduras or Costa Rica or Peru to help with justice issues but not spend the same effort in their own neighborhood or community or state?" Let's "chew" on it. I can't lie. I'm part of the "many" because I'm going to Mexico over the summer for missions.  It made me wonder -- what if God calls me to missions just here in my backyard? Will I be okay with that? Then I won't be off in Africa or South America doing crazy things, but if God calls me right here in Maryland, would I be okay? Then would I be okay if God calls me to go to Africa or South America or wherever he wants me to go? I hope I would be able to say "yes" wherever God calls me because I know his plans are perfect. I guess I didn't answer the question at all. Well, that can be saved for a conversation. What do you think about the question? (:

I see annoying, dirty, weird, clingy, too-touchy, ignorant, too-proud, too-shy, unlovable. God sees beauty. God sees his beautiful creations lost and longing to be loved, to be filled by Him. I want to see people the way God sees them. I want to see deeper than the appearance. I want to have God's perspective. I don't even want the individual's opinions of himself/herself to matter. I want to see people the way God sees them. God has been showing me that there's more to a person than you think there is. Someone may look like they have the perfect life but deep inside, they may be suffering from loneliness or whatever they may be lacking. Because only Jesus can satisfy the emptiness in our hearts.

One day my friend kept telling me "Humility is attractive." Ahaha. I was thinking something along those lines before she told me, but her repetition made me think about Jesus because Jesus was humble. Does that make us attractive to Him?

Speaking of humility, I need to keep reminding myself to be humble. "Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall" (Proverbs 16:18). So true.

God, I say that all the glory goes to you. I know that everything I do is not because of my strength or because it's from me, but it's you working through me.

One more thought. There's so much more.

I lied. I have another thought - everything goes back to love.

If you're reading this straight through, I guess you should consider each paragraph as a separate blog post because some of these things don't really relate to each other at all. I mean, they do relate to each other, but not directly.

Proverbs 3

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil." (5-7)

"My son, do not despise the Lord's discipline and do not resent his rebuke, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in." (11-12)

"Blessed is the man who finds wisdom, the man who gains understanding, for she is more profitable than silver and yields better returns than gold." (13-14)

"Have no fear of sudden disaster or of the ruin that overtakes the wicked, for the Lord will be your confidence and will keep your foot from being snared." (25-26)

"He mocks proud mockers but gives grace to the humble." (34)

The whole chapter is soo good. Check it out. (:

Encouraging

I have been meaning to write about encouragement for the past week, but I never got around to it. How should I start? I'll start with what I wrote down last week -- "...how or when or why do we encourage others? What is it? I think encouraging someone is lifting up someone's face. Even when they cannot lift up their own face, an encourager holds their friends' dignities. They hold each other up. Who needs to be encouraged? Everyone. We were created into a community, right? Then there must be a reason. We were created to help each other out. It may be from writing a letter to showing someone you appreciate them by noticing the everyday little things they do -- laundry, dishes, cleaning, etc." I'm not completely sure what I meant by the dignities part, but that's what I wrote, haha. After contemplating on how people encourage or get encouraged, I realized that there's no set way to encourage. Everyone gets encouraged in different ways. Sometimes you need to hear something, sometimes you need to see something, and it just goes on and on. Sometimes it's just one word that someone says that really encourages you. Furthermore, I learned that encouraging others is not a one-time deal; it's always an on-going process. The devil will always try to convince us with his lies. Even in the most victorious moments of our lives, he will always whispers lies and we must encourage each other constantly to stand firm in the truth. When it seems like God isn't there, it's easy to listen to the lies, but we can't. We must be constantly on our watch.

Think about this -- (well, I biblegateway-ed "encourage" and it came up 54 times and the first thing that came up was about Joshua, so I was reminded of Joshua). Joshua was leading the Israelites to conquer the Promise land, but he did not do it by himself. God told Moses "But commision Joshua, and encourage and strengthen him, for he will lead his people across and will cause them to inherit the land that you will see" (Deut 3:28). Here, we see that God sent Moses to encourage Joshua. Our leaders also need to be encouraged. King David, a man after God's heart, was always encouraged by his best friend Jonathan. Without Jonathan's encouragements, who knows what could have happened? I feel like we often overlook encouragements or more specifically encouragements we have received in the past when we have success. I know I do. Sometimes I think I end up thinking I did something by myself when in reality, I overcame things because people encouraged me. I also realized that a way of encouraging someone could be through prayer. It reminds me when I had to take my SATs for the first time. I know that knowing people were praying for me really encouraged me. Also being with optimistic people who believed in me helped too. (:

If you see a friend downcast, what are you going to do? Watch him keep falling? No, lift him up. Help him. Do something. Don't watch him keep falling.

Proverbs is deep. (:
"An anxious heart weighs a man down, but a kind word cheers him up" (Proverbs 12:25).
"As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another" (Proverbs 27:17).

Encouraging someone can be very inconvenient. I suppose in a way, it's a way to love him/her and it takes effort, but try it. When you encourage others, you'll find yourself being encouraged too! (:

I haven't posted pictures in a while so here it is! These pictures make it seem like it's fall than spring.

You lead, I follow.

After climbing a mountain, I'm amazed at the view at the top (metaphorically speaking). I'm glad that the struggles of climbing the mountain is done and over. But I forget. I forget who brought me through that I can stand on top of this mountain - it was God. I climbed this mountain not through of my own strength, but because God guided me as I was struggling to take each step. In fact, he carried me on his back as I encountered the hardest part of the hike. Then, why do I abandon him once the struggle is over? Often times, after I go through something really difficult, I'm so excited that God is victorious. Then I forget. But I shouldn't. What happens is that I try doing things on my own again only to find out that I can't do it on my own. It's funny. I think God laughs in heaven when he sees me trying to do things on my own again. "Silly Grace. She's trying to do everything on her own again." Because when I try to do everything on my own, I get overwhelmed. I get burdened. I get burnt out. But that's not how God wants me to live. He wants me to trust him. He'll lead. And I'll follow. It doesn't work the other way around because God's plans are sovereign. I trust that he has the best plans for me and I know that he never fails. Though people may fail (though I may fail you), God never fails. He loves me so deeply and passionately that he wants the best for me. He wants me to live a life full of joy, without stress. As APs, SAT, violin tests, and all these things that seem impossible are coming up, God is teaching me to just follow Him. I really can't do it all on my own because it's just humanly crazy. He simply wants me to follow Him with all the faith that I have. In the end, it's not about me. As John the Baptist once said, I must become less and he must become greater.

All of this reminded me of this song: You Lead by Jamie Grace

One more thing: God is also teaching me to just enjoy each day and to cherish this moment because despite the busy-ness of life at the moment, this moment is sweet. (sidenote: the weather lately has been amazing) Who knows what life will be like a year later? Everything can be different. I can only trust Him. 

thoughts

It's Easter. Lent's over. I'm home. Jesus is alive. There's great hope. There's power. There's life.

Initially I gave up facebook for lent. Then halfway through lent, I gave up blogging which is why you haven't seen me post in a few weeks. During these weeks, God taught me a lot more about himself and his heart for people. A lot has happened and the next month is about to be crazy. It's been spring break and I went to a conference this weekend. This break has been so refreshing. I just love spring. I love the weather and I love how it's still sunny out at seven in the evening.

Faith, hope, love. We hear these words all the time. Well, I do anyways. But do we actually know the depth of each of these words? Each of these words have so much meaning in them. This year, God has been teaching me the deeper meaning of each of these words and in the end, they're all intertwined.

I believe in a God who can do big things. I believe he can move mountains.
Matthew 21:21 says "Jesus replied, 'I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and it will be done.''"
This is amazing.

Today is Easter. What is Easter and what's so significant about it? I have heard the Easter story countless number of times, but I learn something new each year. Jesus was blameless, pure, and innocent. Yet, he chose to die on the cross for our sins. For my sins, for your sins, and for the sins of everybody who has ever lived. He died a painful and humiliating death on a cross. I asked God today -- "Why? Why did you do this for us?" I look around and I see the weaknesses in people. We are proud, arrogant, inadequate to do what we're called to do, irresponsible, judgmental, short in patience, careless with our words, insensitive, selfish, and more. To sum it up, we are sinful. Yet, Jesus died for us on the cross. Why? It's because he loves us. I do not say it lightly that he loves us. He deeply and passionately loves each one of us. I was thinking about this during the conference. God does not favor anyone. He loves each person unconditionally. If you study the life of King David, we can really see how much God loved him. Same thing if you study the life of Jesus. With the same abundant love God loves them, He loves me too! Isn't that amazing? Going back to the significance of Easter. Why is it significant? Jesus died for our sins, but not only did he die, he rose again from the dead. He conquered death. He conquered Satan. He is victorious. That is the basis of Christianity.  If we choose to receive what Jesus did for us, we will one day rise from the dead again and be alive with Jesus Christ. Here, we see hope. There's hope for our futures despite the difficulties because no matter what, Jesus is victorious. Satan tries to tell us otherwise. Miracles did not just happen during Jesus' ministry. It happens today too because Jesus is alive!

This spring break, I actually read a book titled Kisses from Katie by Katie Davis. It was a really good book. It was more than a book. It was a testimony of God's goodness and how God continues to use Katie Davis as a missionary in Uganda. She's only twenty-two or twenty-three and she has adopted 14 children. Everything she has done or is doing seems impossible, but it is possible because it's God who leads her. It's God who gives her strength. It's not because of her talents, but throughout the book, she emphasizes that it's because she chose to say "yes" to God. This made me think about my life. What if God called me to go somewhere right now. Could I leave everything I know behind -- my home, family, friends, college education? I guess I'm still asking myself questions, but I hope that when that day comes, I will be able to say "yes." The book also opened my heart to missions. Ah, although her life sounds difficult, it's also filled with the great joy.

Philippians 3:10 says "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead." After reading Kisses from Katie, I realized that life is full of hardships and difficulties. People are suffering everywhere. There is so much brokenness in this world. And as Christians, life is not always happy. In fact, it's the times when we are suffering that we grow the most. All of this made me think of this verse. Jesus actually suffered so much. He was wrongly accused and suffered a humiliating death on a cross. To know Jesus deeper, we also must suffer. Because when we suffer we depend solely on Jesus; our relationship with Jesus goes to another level. Suffering is hard, but we always know that God is victorious in the end.

I'm just so excited about the future Jesus has for each one of us! Ahhhh, haha. When you say yes to Jesus, you may not have the "American Dream" but it will not be boring.

God has been teaching me to deny myself. This is really hard, but I need to deny what I want and my plans to let his plans fill my life. He is Sovereign. I trust that he has the best future for me. (:

Laugh. At the winter retreat in February, Jesus reassured me that he is victorious. He taught me to just laugh despite the difficulties in life because he is indeed victorious in the end. I totally forgot about this after a month or so after the retreat, but I was reminded again. I don't need to be stressed. I need to laugh and be joyful. There's SAT, AP tests, and a violin test, but I need to laugh through it all. All these seem like a huge mountain at the moment, but nothing is impossible with God, right? Though junior year has been the hardest year, I have learned so much from it. Deeper friendships, learning through sufferings, trusting God to another level, homeworkingworkingworking, etc.

I'm going to Mexico this summer. SO EXCITING.

When God leads, he will always provide.

This keeps getting longer and longer, but I've been learning more about God's grace! We always sing "Amazing Grace" at church, but I have never really appreciated the song until recently. God's grace is soooo good.

I need to get used to this new blogger format.