how limited

today, well, let's review.

physics, that went well.
english, same old. fell asleep 3 quarters way through.
philosophy, fun as usual.
math, interesting.

fellowship, horrible.
post-fellowship, just not what i expected.

today, the grade 9's were all gone for take your kid to work day. when seeing the attendance, i figured, wow, it's like last year all over again, so this program should go well.

apparently not.

no one listened, no one paid attention, everyone just added to noise and the point of the message was lost in it. i bet no one even remembers what the discussion was about.
and it really makes me wonder, what the heck am i doing this for? this kinda thing has been happening ever since the beginning of the fellowship, which was over a month ago, how can nothing have changed over that period of time? no one will stay quiet, no one will do what their told, and i feel like i'm the only one doing what i'm supposed to do.

it's often redundant and frustrating and tiring to tell the fellowship you lead to either
1) be quiet and pay attention
or
2) think before you do something.

so what do i do now.

pray. seriously pray. nothing i can do can change the way things are now. i'm lost in this absolute insanity and i'm quite not sure of what to do.

God, forgive them for they do not what they are doing?
i don't know. just, i don't know.

i'm just a suburban boy

i was walking downtown a few days ago (saturday to be exact) and, as per usual, i felt a little happy. i always sort of appreciated the downtown life because of it's active-ness. but yesterday i saw some of the most disturbing things.

1) the boys aren't refined

i was walking and i noticed a couple stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, and all i could hear was the husband speaking rather rudely to his wife, saying things like "shut up, shut up. let go of me, are you crazy?"

all this and it was in front of their child.

briefly watching that little dramatized section of life was a little bit overwhelming. it made me think about the often stupidity of boys (and girls too, in some cases) when it comes to getting into relationships. whether at some point, it leads to broken hearts that need mending or abusive words that do no good, it just re-affirmed in me all the more how much i wish for boys to man up and know what they're getting into when it comes to relationships. liking-to-loving a girl is never a simple matter. really, it isn't.

2) the kids have no idea

walking a bit more, and i saw young kid, who looked no older than the age of 6, lighting up a lighter for this man's cigarette. he was in a wheel chair. i've always found it self-defeating and almost ironic when i see parents smoke in front of their kids. they are given a life, and then they decide to destroy it bit by small bit. it's a little distasteful.

3) rule 1) cardio

i watched zombieland, and admittedly, it was actually funny. i laughed for a good portion of it. but i think what was funny was the small side story of typical romance made of cheese. everyone's looking for love these days. literally everyone.

well, i'm just a suburban boy. what more could i ask for.

God, your call to do what you gotta do with me. thanks.

excuse

for some reason, today, that word really scared me.

i had the interesting experience of sitting in a car with a friend who was arguing with his dad in chinese. obviously me being the one who can't seem to communicate in any other foreign language other than english, sat there not knowing what exactly they were talking about it.

through the bit of the chinese rambling i heard this one word pop up. one english word in an entirely chinese conversation, pretty random if you asked me. but the moment i heard that word it seemed like i was brought into this world of thinking what happens when the word "excuse" is put to use.

the first thing i thought of is when my parents use it on me, and when i use it on them when we're caught in the midst of arguments. i remembered all the times they would say that my reasoning only lead to "them", and how much it annoyed me when they said that.

and then i linked it to how many times we make "them" up in front of God...

well... end of story there.

i guess now after realizing that today, i've sorta re-entered that state of mind of trying to be brutally honest before God in my prayer and time with Him, even as i write this blog. all these blogs are my time with God because they are my reflections to God's character.

so my prayer to Him today is to try and not make excuses to Him. should i ever catch my self doing so, then i will remember the times we use it on ourselves.

reveal your love

today was a composition of ups and downs, high notes and low notes.

at school we had an all day, out-of-class leadership workshop. who would've known that the most irrelevant yet eye-opening things would've happened.

let me first admit that the workshop was rather... redundant. au contraire to learning on how to be a leader, we just learned how to cheat in capture the flags, and that the colour orange is all of associated with lap dancing. how beneficial.

the most burdening thing however was feeling rather torn down from being the co-pres of music council, where for some reason it felt like things were falling apart. on top of that, being a leader of a school fellowship that for some reason didn't know the true idea of communication between people to solve problems. sometimes when i talk to them, i wish that they would listen to the fact that as opposed to one person being at fault, everyone was. including myself, which to me, is rather ironic.

being a leader, i couldn't even communicate the truth with love...

"love is... slow to anger..." 1 corinthians 13

now that was hypocrisy. which lead to stress and frustration that was not needed or necessary to get any point across. on top of that, i was compared to something that i never in my life would want to be compared to, because i'm doing everything i can to not be like that.

this is what happens to a teenage boy who can't for some reason is irrational. this left me hanging on my own thread, being pushed down by every heart-breaking burden. my heart isn't perfect, neither is the fellowship i lead.

and then came the friday night.

fellowship time. i was leading worship, and i prayed that i would be able to just dump those burdens aside and lead worship without being worried about what might and might not happen, with a pure heart and mindset. instead i lead a worship set that i myself couldn't worship with.

but then came discussion time. people were sharing so much all of a sudden, and it was topped off with the two hosts of the program to share about their personal stories. people were touched by it, and i know that with all my heart. thank God for them.

see when we open ourselves to difference instead of clouding our vision with indifference, that is when we begin to see unity. when we begin to be vulnerable to the people around us, that is when we begin to see God's wonderful grace in it's purest essence.

should you, the reader, be reading this, i dare you. i challenge you. i want to see you give up like you've never given up before. think so low of yourself like you have nothing left to lose.

i don't mean giving up as in to give in to your problems. i mean to give up your pride, give up your prejudice, give up your judging mindset. think low of yourself, below others. find yourself caught up in humility because that's where you will find peace.

to those with the same burdens of witnessing catastrophic breakdowns of unity, i challenge you to do what the title of this blog is.

follow you

so yesterday for english class, we had a supply teacher. as a result we ended up watching the documentary called "invisible children."

and my goodness, i think that's a documentary people have to see.

it's a documentary that talks about the reality of the disasters in sudan, through the eyes of 3 random boys with a camera they bought off of ebay.

now i'm not a big personal fan of documentaries, because most of the time they just tell about "this happened"'s and "that happened"'s. most of the time, that doesn't appeal to me. but this was different. this documentary, in short, called for action, called for urgency.

one of the parts that i think got to me the most was the end, the "part where the credits are supposed to roll." in place of the credits, they wrote a message, asking for our help in spreading awareness, in financial ways, in using our talents and walk the talk. after the documentary, both my friend and i looked at each other and said, "that was intense."

she began to say something like "i should write a play for that documentary." and i said things like "i'll write a song for them." and i think it's a good idea.

the reason the documentary was called "invisible children" was because the boys who travelled to sudan had come up with the statement that it was a sad thing that so many of the beautiful faces that go through the tragedies there seem to be over looked, or invisible.

it's such a sad thing that the north american culture seems to be so horribly pampered, to the point where catastrophes like the ones in sudan are overlooked. all that's on the news today is "this soldier died" and not "there is a genocide in this country." though of course the grievance of a soldier is deserved, but why completely shove sudan's problems (and other countries too) under the rug? why toss them aside as if every face on that country is as easy as crumpling and tossing away a piece of art?

i guess with our selfishness and ignorance, a lot of things are unaware. God, give us a wake up call to the least of these.

"I'll follow you into the world"

home is not home

so i just got back from vacationing in p.e.i, new brunswick, and quebec. it was a great week, got to spend loads of time with my family and my to-be-brother-in-law. but it's a little funny, because isn't the common thing to go home and begin to reminisce about how good the vacation was, how much you miss it, how much you wish you could go back.

instead, it seemed like i got home to a boring life. i didn't think too much about what had just happened, instead i'm thinking about what to do next. why? i don't know really.

the moment i got home, there were some disagreements, which i will not get into detail with. people seemed to get really discontent with either myself or themselves. i went back to a home of utter chaos, it seems.

i prayed to God about what the heck was happening. why was everyone so uptight all of a sudden, why am i the target of some people's arguments, why are there so many people so insecure about themselves?

i got home friday night, worship practice saturday morning, hung around a bit because a lot of my friends started to show up for a wedding at my church, saturday morning was okay. from there on in, it seemed to become a little heated, i don't know why.

and all of this has sort of caused me to fall in this, dare i say, common modern mindset where i can only think about what to do next. i want to remember my vacation for what it was, but it seems i can't at the moment.

when i remember beauty, i'll let you know.

Faithful and Unseen

"Often times, we like to question why things couldn't happen any sooner, seeing as it will not make any difference. It is there we're reminded that faith is telling us that our ways are still far less. Until then, I'll chew on time."

This was a facebook status I published a few days ago, in response to a struggle with a friend.

There have been many times in my own personal live where I wished God did things sooner for me, because it seemed like if it was done later, it just wouldn't have made any difference at all. I wished that God would divinely intervene when I needed Him too just because I was in that big of a hole.

But it was there I realized that faith is something that believes in the unseen, something that believes in the unbelievable.

Human beings just love to dwell thermselves in what's around them, drown themselves in what is seen. But I as a human being that believes in a God know that there are always greater things that are bound to be found. Why suffer with the times we see when there's so much more to be seen? It's not worth it, that's for sure.

Another thing I saw was God's love. Or at least a good example of it. I published the mentioned facebook status when I realized that I couldn't do things alone, because I saw how unfair the situation was, how I wanted so badly to have power beyond what I have to change things.

That's exactly how God loves us, isn't it?

We dwell in crap all of our lives, as if these were the typical things we live in. We're stupid, let's face it.

But yet, this God, creator of everything we see, divine ruler over the whole world, loves us? Loves me? Wants us so badly? It doesn't make sense, but yet somehow it does.

Chew on that. Chew on the fact of how much God actually loves you.