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. (: