It’s July!
I woke up head heavy, eyes lid half shut and hearts burdened with much thoughts. Yet another day – I thought to myself. Often, it feels like a constant perpetual rut that I am stuck in. Self-doubts, insecurities, uncertainties of the now and future creeps in every now and then. I pull open the curtain – right where the sun shines in each morning without fail – and soak my face in the sun for a moment, and thanked God for another day of being able to live and serve Him as His.
July is my favorite month. There’s something really refreshing about checkpoints that I find most times daunting, but hopeful and encouraging. It gives you a picture to how far you are now from your goal. Not forgetting that it is also a time where you can be completely real and honest about the state of things currently, to understanding the yourself in light of that context, to be able to know, how you have fell short but also what you have accomplished. July is just the perfect month to reminisce and reflect, falling in the beginning of the second half of the year. Certainty, on top of that, I am turning 24 this month. I definitely have much to ponder upon.
As for me, this past 6 months has been so challenging, yet sanctifying. I struggled much. The way I never did before in my entire life. People say it’s adulting and a part of growing up. It’s true. There are days where I feel so weighed down by my sins, having to deal with myself, my existential struggles, because when you really think about it, isn’t the world just filled with much despair and pain? Day after day, headlines one after another. If you really looked, beyond the comfortable cocoon that us comfortable 20th century millennials are sheltered from – the world is in chaos. One would be extremely ignorant and naïve to think that everything is fine.
Nevertheless, of late I have learn to see the world from a completely different perspective. I learn to see the world’s despair and pain, including my own within the context of God’s redemption plan and have saw for myself from His word in Ephesians that He will bring everything under his rule again, where the church, his body will manifest his fullness once and for all. (Eph 1:10, 1:22-23). All will be made right again. There’s much beauty in pain now because what I witness in me, in the church, in the community and the world is not all that there is to it. Sin and its curse will be defeated in due time.
My despair also taught me a lot about myself. My selfishness, evil-heartedness of wanting a selfish life lived for my happiness and desires. That all my life, I’ve been trying to search for myself, struggling to find my footing in this world to merely be wanted, recognized and loved. Was it not God whom by His precious blood, paid the price and brought me true life, called me to be His, to belong to His church?
In that, I then found much joy and hope in the life that is now found in Him, that He, in love predestined me in the deadness of my sins. All of that with a sole purpose – to display the immeasurable riches of grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. (Eph 2:7). God indeed is so big and powerful, much more than my finite brain is able to comprehend. He is totally deserving of all our allegiance, obedience for who He is. I thank God today for God, and His Gospel.
That said, even amidst much of life’s fog and confusion, I can see now. I see why Paul sees his stewardship as even GRACE, to be able to suffer FOR THE LORD (Eph 3:7, Eph 4:1). He counted them all as lost. I pray and hope that God will help me to emulate a faith like Paul.
I am thankful today.
Occasional Musings 